They certainly would not have wanted or planned their own decline. A few days before coming to Copan I had been speaking to Robert about the rise and fall of Maya city-states. It's not that simple. We cannot so conveniently point a finger at cities as a way of explaining the environmental problem and assigning blame. This is an equally absurd position.
Cities do cause a lot of problems, there is no debating that.
The real issue, however, is to examine the tendency of humans, in every age and nearly every region, to gather together into ever larger social collections. The facts are there to see for anyone who cares to read the archaeological and historical literature. I think that probably a great many have been deeply in touch with the livingingness of the planet and not a few have also been highly awakened spiritual beings. These two things are not the real issue. While there are numerous postulated reasons, the primary two seem to be some deep, psychic need for togetherness and the greater ease of food production and distribution.