The traditional approach to urban planning is often based on the assumption that order must be deliberately designed and imposed to prevent chaos and inefficiency. However, cities also exhibit spontaneous, self-organizing patterns that emerge from the interactions of individuals and groups. This paper explores planned orders and self-organizing orders, arguing that the latter represents a third alternative to both centralized planning and disorder. Drawing on insights from complexity theory, the paper highlights how urban environments can exhibit synchrony without direct top-down control. It discusses the implications of self-organization for planning theory, particularly the need to move beyond rigid, deterministic planning models toward more open, framework-based approaches. The paper advocates for planning strategies that enable self-organization by setting broad conditions for action and interaction rather than prescribing specific outcomes.