Book Chapter

Emerging Theory

Uljee, Inge, Engelen, Guy, White, Roger

2015

Overview

Following Richard Levins, a theory of cities and regions as complex systems consists of a set of overlapping models together with their robust consequences—i.e. the quasi-regularities that emerge. Five such regularities emerge from the family of models discussed in this book: The clustering-dispersal bifurcation dependent on the distance decay parameter The bi-fractal radial dimension The linearity of the cluster size – frequency relationship The decomposition into two distinct scales of the distance decay effect The possible universality of the CA influence functions. The models generate these regularities but do not explain them because they emerge from the behaviour of the individual agents who populate the city, and the models are not explicit at that level. However, the most important aspect of the emerging theory is not the set of regularities but the representation of the process of self-organization itself, both as a source of bifurcating possibilities and as a generator of detailed representations of actual cities and regions.

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Subject: Environmental Politics / Overlapping models / Quasi regularities / Richard Levins
• ISBN: 9780262029568, 0262029561