Introduction to Urban Science: Evidence and Theory of Cities as Complex Systems

between material infrastructure and population change that when cities grow quickly plays out so tragically in the form of slums also plays a detrimental role when cities shrink.

decline.

Standardized bowls, thought to represent daily wages or rations in grain, Mass construction technologies (e.g., mudbricks, masonry, and canals), Property records and records of warehousing and economic transactions, Written laws, especially regulating conflict and theft, and associated standardized penalties, Writing and early reflections on the hu

We require one last assumption: that there is perfect competition, so the maximum profit (net income) is actually zero!

the initial ingredients for an idealized urban system: (1) an evenly distributed population in space, aggregated in a number of settlements; (2) that all settlements (big and small) be equidistant; and that all settlements (3) fill an unbounded, limitless, homogeneous plane

To do better, we need to look elsewhere, at places in science where a statistical approach to information, growth, and strategic behavior go hand in hand.

as large-scale connectivity becomes possible

Expanding cooperation to nonkin involves shared morals and ethics as well as the formal development of law and punishment, often associated with organized religion and Politics.

will also show that other assumptions, such as utility and production functions and the emphasis on maximization based on consumption or profits, are not fundamental or even necessary for theory development in urban science.

All “consumers” are assumed to have the same income, y, and identical “tastes,” meaning the same utility function,