Related papers: Measuring Global Urban Complexity from the Perspec…
This chapter investigates the concept of living structure - which is defined as a structural hierarchy that has a recurring pattern of an abundance of small substructures compared to larger ones - and the application of such structures in…
Complex systems have become a popular lens for analyzing cities and complexity theory has many implications for urban performance and resilience. This paper develops a typology of measures and indicators for assessing the physical…
A good understanding of cities is crucial to implement urban planning policies leading to social and economic sustainability and an efficient use of resources. While urban concentration has been associated with both positive and negative…
Given the importance of urban sustainability and resilience to the future of our planet, there is a need to better understand the interconnectedness between the social, economic, environmental, and governance outcomes that underline these…
Sustainable urban design or planning is not a LEGO-like assembly of prefabricated elements, but an embryo-like growth with persistent differentiation and adaptation towards a coherent whole. The coherent whole has a striking character -…
Cities are some of the most intricate and advanced creations of humanity. Most objects in cities are perfectly synchronised to coordinate activities such as jobs, education, transportation, entertainment, and waste management. Although each…
The amount of data that is being gathered about cities is increasing in size and specificity. However, despite this wealth of information, we still have little understanding of what really drives the processes behind urbanisation. In this…
As Christopher Alexander discovered, all space or matter - either organic or inorganic - has some degree of order in it according to its structure and arrangement. The order refers to a kind of structural character, called living structure,…
A city is not a tree but a semi-lattice. To use a perhaps more familiar term, a city is a complex network. The complex network constitutes a unique topological perspective on cities and enables us to better understand the kind of problem a…
Entropy relates the fast, microscopic behaviour of the elements in a system to its slow, macroscopic state. We propose to use it to explain how, as complexity theory suggests, small scale decisions of individuals form cities. For this, we…
Increasing evidence suggests that cities are complex systems, with structural and dynamical features responsible for a broad spectrum of emerging phenomena. Here we use a unique data set of human flows and couple it with information on the…
Inspired by Christopher Alexanders conception of the world - space is not lifeless or neutral but a living structure involving far more small things than large ones a topological representation has been previously developed to characterize…
The question What is Complexity? has occupied a great deal of time and paper over the last 20 or so years. There are a myriad different perspectives and definitions but still no consensus. In this paper I take a phenomenological approach,…
This chapter explores the concept of self-organization in urban planning and design, highlighting its role in shaping the unique characteristics of cities. It examines how various socio-economic, cultural, and political factors contribute…
The topological organization of several world cities are studied according to respective representations by complex networks. As a first step, the city maps are processed by a recently developed methodology that allows the most significant…
Complexity of patterns is a key information for human brain to differ objects of about the same size and shape. Like other innate human senses, the complexity perception cannot be easily quantified. We propose a transparent and universal…
Quantifying the spatial organization of human settlements is fundamental to understanding the complexity of urban systems. However, the quantitative patterns of the distribution of villages, towns, and cities that lie between random and…
The concept of city or urban resilience has emerged as one of the key challenges for the next decades. As a consequence, institutions like the United Nations or Rockefeller Foundation have embraced initiatives that increase or improve it.…
Discovered by Christopher Alexander, living structure is a physical phenomenon, through which the quality of the built environment or artifacts can be judged objectively. It bears two distinguished properties just like a tree: "far more…
There is a widespread assumption that the universe in general, and the Earth's biosphere in particular, is becoming more complex over time. This paper formulates this assumption as a macroscopic law, the law of increasing complexity, for a…