Agility and Illegibility
To authoritarian high-modernists, elements of the environment that do not conform to their purist design visions appear “illegible” and anxiety-provoking. As a result, they attempt to make the environment legible by forcibly removing illegible elements. Failures follow because important elements, critical to the functioning of the environment, get removed in the process.
Geometrically laid-out suburbs, for example, are legible and conform to platonic architectural visions, even if they are unlivable and economically stagnant. Slums on the other hand, appear illegible and are anxiety-provoking to planners, even when they are full of thriving economic life. As a result, authoritarian planners level slums and relocate residents into low-cost planned housing. In the process they often destroy economic and cultural vitality.