There is a well-established research path from data collection to the analysis of empirical data of a specific phenomenon of interest.
However, it becomes an issue when the subject matter is the potential implications of alternative urban conditions. Architecture at an urban scale, among other disciplines, are fundamentally involved in the making and remaking of cities – the designed and planned alterations of urban conditions in different ways and scales.
There are two broad ways to frame research under what Faudi called “theory of planning” and “theory in planning”. The former concerns how planning is done and the latter concerns the spatial solutions in planning.
The event or phenomenon of interest exists on paper as a designed or planned thought or idea – by definition – yet to exist in the real world are beyond the access of empirical techniques – there is simply no way to collect empirical data of something that has not happened.