It's true that cities are magnets for crime, pollution, and disease. But they also are centers of innovation, economic growth, and efficiency, argue SFI's Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West in Scientific American.
In a feature article headlined “Bigger Cities Do More With Less” appearing in a recent special issue on better cities, the two point out that as cities grow they become more efficient and more productive. People who live in densely populated urban areas have smaller carbon footprints, use less infrastructure, and consume fewer resources per capita.
Cities are also more diverse and contain a higher concentration of innovators, who in turn create more opportunities for economic growth.
Read the Scientific American article (September)
Read a KCET-TV (Southern California) commentary on the science of cities (November 9, 2011)
Watch the video about SFI's cities research (7 minutes)