Sublime

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

as cities grow and their networks evolve, the area or volume of the networks needed to keep them functionally connected tends to become smaller on a per capita basis. For example, in larger cities more people can share the same bus or segment of road or sewer pipe.

We would now like to account for the behavior of collective growth in a system of cities and the pattern of relative fluctuations. Specifically, we would like to understand at a fundamental level the slowness and persistence of these deviations from scaling as well as get a handle on their typical magnitudes.