Related papers: The Backbone of a City
Cities can be seen as the epitome of complex systems. They arise from a set of interactions and components so diverse that is almost impossible to describe them exhaustively. Amid this diversity, we chose an object which orchestrates the…
The increasing urbanization process we have been witnessing in the last decades is accompanied by a significant increase in traffic congestion in cities around the world. The effect of the congestion is represented in the enormous time…
In this chapter, we discuss urban mobility from a complexity science perspective. First, we give an overview of the datasets that enable this approach, such as mobile phone records, location-based social network traces, or GPS trajectories…
We show that prominent centrality measures in network analysis are all based on additively separable and linear treatments of statistics that capture a node's position in the network. This enables us to provide a taxonomy of centrality…
The concept of `proximity-based cities' has gained attention as a new urban organizational model. Most prominently, the 15-minute city contends that cities can function more effectively, equitably and sustainably if essential, everyday…
The metric backbone of a weighted graph is the union of all-pairs shortest paths. It is obtained by removing all edges $(u,v)$ that are not the shortest path between $u$ and $v$. In networks with well-separated communities, the metric…
Economic activities favor mutual geographical proximity and concentrate spatially to form cities. In a world of diminishing transport costs, however, the advantage of physical proximity is fading, and the role of cities in the economy may…
Understanding how built environments shape human experience is central to designing sustainable cities. Cycling provides a critical case: it delivers health and environmental benefits, yet its uptake depends strongly on the experience of…
Urbanization is a phenomenon of concern for planning and public health: projections are difficult because of policy changes and natural events, and indicators are multiple. There are previous studies of development that used fractals, but…
The interaction of all mobile species with their environment hinges on their movement patterns: the places they visit and how frequently they go there. In human society, where the prevalent form of cohabitation is in cities, the highly…
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…
Is there a general economic pathway recapitulated by individual cities over and over? Identifying such evolution structure, if any, would inform models for the assessment, maintenance, and forecasting of urban sustainability and economic…
Centrality, in some sense, captures the extent to which a vertex controls the flow of information in a network. Here, we propose Local Detour Centrality as a novel centrality-based betweenness measure that captures the extent to which a…
Analyzing the structure and function of urban transportation networks is critical for enhancing mobility, equity, and resilience. This paper leverages network science to conduct a multi-modal analysis of San Diego's transportation system.…
Cities are characterized by concentrating population, economic activity and services. However, not all cities are equal and a natural hierarchy at local, regional or global scales spontaneously emerges. In this work, we introduce a method…
Intensive development of urban systems creates a number of challenges for urban planners and policy makers in order to maintain sustainable growth. Running efficient urban policies requires meaningful urban metrics, which could quantify…
We propose a quantitative method to classify cities according to their street pattern. We use the conditional probability distribution of shape factor of blocks with a given area, and define what could constitute the `fingerprint' of a…
The level of air quality in urban centres is affected by emission of several pollutants, mainly coming from the vehicles flowing in their road networks. This is a well known phenomenon that influences the quality of life of people. Despite…
Understanding human mobility patterns -- how people move in their everyday lives -- is an interdisciplinary research field. It is a question with roots back to the 19th century that has been dramatically revitalized with the recent increase…
Many large cities are found at locations with certain first nature advantages. Yet, those exogenous locational features may not be the most potent forces governing the spatial pattern of cities. In particular, population size, spacing and…