Cities, scaling, & sustainability

The future of humanity and the long-term sustainability of the planet are inextricably linked to the fate of our cities. Cities are the crucible of civilization, the hubs of innovation, the engines of wealth creation and centers of power, the magnets that attract creative individuals, and the stimulant for ideas, growth, and innovation. But they al

we have found new routes for understanding cities as (approximate) spatial equilibria, for deriving their structural complexity in terms of professions and neighborhoods, for understanding the first cities and their “urban package” of technologies and institutions, and for demystifying the microscopic foundations of learning

when a set of cities operates as an integrated urban system and what quantitative properties follow for their relative sizes.