Joseph Rykwert
The Seduction of Place:

The History and Future of the City

"The Greeks, who used the word polis for the city, used the very same word for a dice-and-board game that, rather like backgammon, depends on an interplay of chance and rule. The players' skill is shown by the way they improvise on the rule after every throw of the dice.

If the analogy works, it would follow that we are agents as well as patients in the matter of our cities."