Handbook on Cities and Complexity

Written by some of the founders of complexity theory and complexity theories of cities (CTC), this Handbook expertly guides the reader through over forty years of intertwined developments: the emergence of general theories of complex self-organized systems and the consequent emergence of CTC. Examining studies from the end of 1970 through to the current leading approach to urbanism, planning and design, the book provides an up-to-date snapshot of CTC. Insightful chapters are split into five parts covering the early foundations of the topic, the evolution of towns and cities and urban complexity, the links between complexity, languages and cities, modelling traffic and parking in cities, and urban planning and design. The Handbook on Cities and Complexity concludes with the contributors’ personal statements on their observations of COVID-19’s impact upon global cities.   This book will be an invaluable resource for those researching cities and complexity and also for scholars of urban studies, planning, physics, mathematics, AI, and architecture.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction to the Handbook on Cities and Complexity 1 Juval Portugali PART I FOUNDATIONS 1 Cities, complexity and beyond 13 Juval Portugali 2 The emergence of complexity theories: an outline 28 Hermann Haken 3 City systems and complexity 48 Michael Batty 4 Major transitions in the story of urban complexity 64 Stephen Marshall and Nick Green PART II COMPLEXITY THEORIES OF CITIES 5 Complexity: the evolution and planning of towns and cities 86 Peter M. Allen 6 Synergetic cities 108 Juval Portugali and Hermann Haken 7 Co-evolution as the secret of urban complexity 136 Denise Pumain 8 Fractal geometry for analyzing and modeling urban patterns and planning sustainable cities 154 Pierre Frankhauser 9 Scaling, fractals and the spatial complexity of cities 176 Yanguang Chen 10 Cybernetic cities: designing and controlling adaptive and robust urban systems 195 Carlos Gershenson, Paolo Santi and Carlo Ratti PART III COMPLEXITY, LANGUAGE AND CITIES 11 New concepts in complexity theory arising from studies in the field of architecture: an overview of the four books of the nature of order with emphasis on the scientific problems which are raised 210 Christopher Alexander 12 The dialectic as driver of complexity in urban and social systems 233 Alan Penn PART IV MODELING COMPLEX CITIES 13 Modelling car traffic in cities 260 Vincent Verbavatz and Marc Barthelemy 14 Studying the dynamics of urban traffic flows using percolation: a new methodology for real-time urban and transportation planning 274 Nimrod Serok, Orr Levy, Shlomo Havlin and Efrat Blumenfeld Lieberthal 15 The simple complex phenomenon of urban parking 295 Itzhak Benenson and Nir Fulman PART V COMPLEXITY, PLANNING AND DESIGN 16 Complexity and uncertainty: implications for urban planning 319 Stefano Moroni and Daniele Chiffi 17 Tailoring nudges to self-organising behavioural patterns in public space 331 Koen Bandsma, Ward S. Rauws and Gert de Roo 18 Evolutionary games in cities and urban planning 349 Sara Encarna..o, Fernando P. Santos, Francisco C. Santos, Margarida Pereira, Jorge M. Pacheco and Juval Portugali 19 Homo faber, Homo ludens and the city: a SIRNIA view on urban planning and design 370 Juval Portugali Epilogue: cities and complexity in the time of COVID-19 391 Hermann Haken, Juval Portugali, Michael Batty, Stephen Marshall, Nick Green, Peter M. Allen, Pierre Frankhauser, Carlos Gershenson, Alan Penn, Vincent Verbavatz, Marc Barthelemy, Daniele Chiffi, Stefano Moroni, Koen Bandsma, Ward S. Rauws and Gert de Roo Index