In his TED Global 2011 talk from Edinburgh, Scotland, SFI Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West shows how the same mathematical framework used to measure growth and predict mortality in living organisms applies as well to cities.
No matter their size, evolutionary history, or worldwide location, cities grow in a predictable, scalable way -- a phenomenon that arises from the constraints of social networks -- according to research by West and his SFI colleagues, including SFI External Professor Luis Bettencourt.
Watch the video (17 minutes, July 2011)
“Cities are the crucible of civilization,” West says. As the sources of global problems such as pollution, disease, crime, and economic troubles, as well as the centers of wealth and new ideas, cities are critical institutions for the future of humanity, West argues, asserting that it is essential to develop a serious scientific theory of cities that is quantifiable and relies on generic underlying principles.