A lot of ways we’ve viewed cities in the past have been through analogies to other complex systems, such as organisms. What this paper tries to do is create a shift in perspective from what cities look like and describe and formalize a city’s function. Trying to shift this perspective creates a new view of cities and allows us to say what cities are. Our conclusion is that cities are a kind of social reactor; they exist to solve the problem of putting lots of socializing people together and coordinate them in space and time in an open-ended, sustainable way.
You want a balance between interactivity and the cost of creating those interactions, and that’s what this formula is about. That balance is what defines a city that is working well and can be achieved for cities of any size. Although people sort of knew that, this paper allows us to formalize that and put all these things in the same equation for the first time.
Some interactions make you want to be in a city, like the exchange of innovative ideas. But others can deter people from cities. Social interactions have to give you an overall advantage in order for cities to exist. You have to take the advantageous social interactions, like measures of innovation and creativity, and subtract the negative interactions, like violence or crime. You also have to subtract the cost of these advantageous interactions, like transportation. When you subtract that cost, that gives the conditions for the city to exist in this balance between creating value through interactions and paying the price for that value.
- Interview with Professor and theoretical physicist Luis Bettencourt
You want a balance between interactivity and the cost of creating those interactions, and that’s what this formula is about. That balance is what defines a city that is working well and can be achieved for cities of any size. Although people sort of knew that, this paper allows us to formalize that and put all these things in the same equation for the first time.
Some interactions make you want to be in a city, like the exchange of innovative ideas. But others can deter people from cities. Social interactions have to give you an overall advantage in order for cities to exist. You have to take the advantageous social interactions, like measures of innovation and creativity, and subtract the negative interactions, like violence or crime. You also have to subtract the cost of these advantageous interactions, like transportation. When you subtract that cost, that gives the conditions for the city to exist in this balance between creating value through interactions and paying the price for that value.
- Interview with Professor and theoretical physicist Luis Bettencourt
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