Layers of Change in Cities

As urban planning is effectively a skill of forecasting the future, understanding change and various speeds of change tied to various layers in cities can be very helpful. While some layers hardly ever change, such as the terrain, others, such as use, change daily. Urban planning deals with the layers between these extremes, changing approximately once in a millennium to once a decade or even once a year. Can urban planning effectively deal with such a span of different urban dynamics?