How to design a city?

EDIT: P.S The traffic flow modeling is serious. If you have an opportunity to do a general mathematical modeling course that may have traffic flow modeling in it. I did maths at uni and took a course on this which had some mathematicians and some engineers, but as ever it depends what is available to you. It's quite interesting and the basics models are very quickly taught.

True, but as I'm sure you're aware traffic modelling also bears a few hazards, as often the models are heavily simplified and streamlined to enable engineers to show that schemes fulfil something like an 85th percentile capacity peak hour requirement, as part of whatever scheme justification they have to do.

They are also only as good as what is put in, i.e. if no motor traffic reduction or a projected increase is factored in to start with they will do a huge disservice, as they often lead to business as usual and often to increased motor traffic capacity. We are still very far from sophisticated models being applied generally. It is also quite hard, perhaps impossible, to model cyclists and pedestrians.