Despite the application of colonial and postcolonial urban planning models during the last 100 or so years, why has non-planning of urban land transpired in the Philippine capital city of Manila? In what ways has it existed as a direct response to the dynamics occurring within the broad societal setting, and/or flaws within planning systems? Furthermore, how has non-planning underpinned the enlargement of the country’s administrative, cultural, and economic nucleus during past decades? How will it do so in the future? Thus, how can understanding of the urban future be shaped via expanding knowledge of past planning practices in the city? All in all, how can a discipline such as Planning History augment contemporary awareness of what Manila’s, and indeed what Asia’s urban future, could be?