Related papers: The statistical physics of Cities
The goal of Science is to understand phenomena and systems in order to predict their development and gain control over them. In the scientific process of knowledge elaboration, a crucial role is played by models which, in the language of…
Urban agglomerations are constantly and rapidly evolving ecosystems, with globalization and increasing urbanization posing new challenges in sustainable urban development well summarized in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals…
Over the last decades, in disciplines as diverse as economics, geography, and complex systems, a perspective has arisen proposing that many properties of cities are quantitatively predictable due to agglomeration or scaling effects. Using…
A longstanding puzzle in urban science is whether there's an intrinsic match between human populations and the mass of their built environments. Previous findings have revealed various urban properties scaling nonlinearly with population,…
Cities are changing constantly. All urban systems face different conditions from day to day. Even when averaged regularities can be found, urban systems will be more efficient if they can adapt to changes at the same temporal scales at…
Knowing and modelling the migration phenomena and especially the social and economic consequences have a theoretical and practical importance, being related to their consequences for development, economic progress (or as appropriate,…
Measures of wealth and production have been found to scale superlinearly with the population of a city. Therefore, it makes economic sense for humans to congregate together in dense settlements. A recent model of population dynamics showed…
Understanding cities is central to addressing major global challenges from climate and health to economic resilience. Although increasingly perceived as fundamental socio-economic units, the detailed fabric of urban economic activities is…
The building of mathematical and computer models of cities has a long history. The core elements are models of flows (spatial interaction) and the dynamics of structural evolution. In this article, we develop a stochastic model of urban…
In recent years modelling crowd and evacuation dynamics has become very important, with increasing huge numbers of people gathering around the world for many reasons and events. The fact that our global population grows dramatically every…
In the last decades, the notion that cities are in a state of equilibrium with a centralised organisation has given place to the viewpoint of cities in disequilibrium and organised from bottom to up. In this perspective, cities are evolving…
Motivated by empirical evidence on the interplay between geography, population density and societal interaction, we propose a generative process for the evolution of social structure in cities. Our analytical and simulation results predict…
Understanding and potentially predicting or even controlling urban labour markets represents a great challenge for workers and policy makers alike. Cities are effective engines of economic growth and prosperity and incubate complex dynamics…
A large proportion of Africa's infrastructure is yet to be built. Where and how these new buildings are constructed matters since today's decisions will last for decades. The resulting morphology of cities has lasting implications for a…
Urban areas are a high-stake target of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. To understand, predict and improve the energy performance of cities, the scientific community develops numerical models that describe how they…
Mobility is a fundamental feature of human life, and through it our interactions with the world and people around us generate complex and consequential social phenomena. Social segregation, one such process, is increasingly acknowledged as…
Commuting is a key mechanism that governs the dynamics of cities. Despite its importance, very little is known of the properties and mechanisms underlying this crucial urban process. Here, we capitalize on $\sim$ 50 million individuals'…
The study of spacetime, and its role in understanding functional systems has received little attention in information science. Recent work, on the origin of universal scaling in cities and biological systems, provides an intriguing insight…
The emerging field of the Science of Cities has unveiled previously undiscovered facets of urban life. Contrary to the expectation of chaotic behaviour influenced solely by cultural and geographic factors, cities globally exhibit universal…
How does transport cost affect the spatial organization of economic activities? This study develops a theoretical framework that distinguishes between two types of dispersion forces in spatial models: "local" dispersion forces acting within…