A Co-evolutionary Perspective on Urban Dynamics
Plenary paper, Foresight/Complexity Lens Symposia
July 9, 2015
Sander van der Leeuw
Arizona State University
Santa Fe Institute
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London 1850’s
Paris 1950’s Manila 2000’s
For most of human history, cities were slums! Who would want to live there?
Leaning from the past, for the future
• To understand the past, science uses an ‘ex post’ perspective – Search for ‘origins’ and
explanations – Relating only present and past – Reduction of dimensionality
• We need to have an ‘ex ante’ perspective – Focus on the emergence of
novelty – The world as a complex system – Increase in dimensionality
• The more we think we know, the less we do know
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Janus
What does the complexity lens contribute?
• Relationships, networks, flows
• Inversion of Occam’s razor
• Holistic intellectual fusion
• Multi-scalar, open systems
• Processes between chance and necessity
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• Learning from the past, about the present, for the future
• Model building as tool for understanding • Ontological uncertainty, unintended
consequences
The ‘complexity lens’ to study urban systems
• A global network in its non-urban context
• Focus on edges and nodes – Connectivity and network structure of urban systems
– Functional relationships of nodes to each other and their environment
– Heterarchical and hierarchical aspects of information-processing (Herbert Simon)
• Increase dimensionality of our perspective
• Compare decisions made to options not chosen – Probability and risk assessment
– The role of unintended consequences
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A theory of urban dynamics?
• Ultimate, not proximate explanation
• Based on the most general characteristics of humans
– Live by processing matter and energy
– Organize by processing information
• Matter and energy cannot be shared; information can
• Flows of energy, matter and information the basic metabolism of human societies
– They follow different patterns
– Energy: dendritic; information: sharing
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Allometric scaling of urban systems
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The core driver : information processing
• To harness resources, humans organize
• At the individual level: – Problem solving structures knowledge --> increases
information processing capacity ––> allows the cognition of new data, problems ––> creates new knowledge
• At the collective level: – Limits to individual information processing ––> more people
involved ––> more need for resources ––> more information processing ––> more knowledge ––> more resources used
• Societies as flow structures dissipating chaos by aligning people, institutions, ideas, resources – Requires potential to flow: innovation provides this
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The information dynamic
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Core processes information faster than periphery, gathers more information, attracts more processing capacity, innovates … and harnesses energy
If the process is hampered, the potential disappears, the structure dissipates …
… and eventually collapses
Why villages? • Sedentary organization reduces
search time for interactions
• Larger groups; higher population densities
• Local investment in (transformation of) environment: agriculture, herding – Interactive socio-environmental systems
• Novel topologies: solid around void – Containers, dwellings
• Information processing local – Homogeneous information pool
• Stable values confined to basic needs
• Environmental differences initiate complementarities
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What are the new dynamics?
• Reciprocal relationship to environment – Intervention in nature – Unintended consequences – Cumulative shifts in risk spectrum – Path dependency
• Control of environmental risk – Simplify the environment; differentiate space
• The emphasis shifts to collective problem-solving – Collaboration, communication, diversification – Group growth
• The cost is growing social complexity – Increasing investment in maintaining society – Increasing societal risks
The urban transition
• As population aggregates grow, growing incidence of conflict
• Social complexity drives functional differentiation – Crafts, (semi) specialization,
• Inter-village communication causes differentiation in local information-processing – Networks now exceed single villages
• Expansion of ‘value space’ – New ideas enable functional differentiation
– Crafts, exchange and trade
• Towns part of networks: urban systems – Look at connectivity, functional differentiation
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Cities emerge in clusters, invent accounts, writing, law, administration etc.
Networks Clerks
Laws
Writing Counting Monumental buildings
Organized religion
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The urban way of life
• Resource availability constrains the growth of cities – Energy + matter savings do not create cities; need to
solve problems drives aggregation
– Feedback loop: information processing out, resources in
• Hierarchization of society – Information is power, is wealth
– From ‘power to’ to ‘power over’
• Urban innovation is essential – Attracts people and uses their cognitive dimensions
– Innovation drives urbanization and vice-versa
• Institutionalization of social behavior – Counting, writing, administration, laws
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c. 1800 AD: The Urban Explosion
• c. 1800 fossil energy lifts resource constraint – Urban explosion
– Cost of innovation down
• Industrial revolution – Innovation becomes endemic,
supply driven
– Faster, faster, faster, not unlike a Ponzi Scheme
• Path dependency remains
• Is innovation overtaking our societies?
We need 100 watts to survive; in the US we harness 11,000 watts/person, invested in society, infrastructure and material culture
The future of urban systems is nonlinear…
• Linear (BaU) scenario: 80% of population urban by 2100
• But we’re in a complex system with unintended consequences
– ICT revolution undermines the need for spatial concentration in innovation
– Climate change forces us to reduce transport cost
– Food-water-energy nexus may constrain BaU scenario
• Dispersed settlement is possible (ICT), saves energy (local generation), improves resilience (community coherence)
• Innovation in the current paradigm has been destructive!
– We need to rethink innovation and its suppression together
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“It’s the economy, stupid!”
• Economy is about allocating value in a value system – ‘What we’ve never thought about’ bounds a value system
• Western value system is outcome of path-dependency – Leads to more and more complex ideas, structures,
institutions within a defined value space – Ultimately the unintended consequences of its own actions
overwhelm any human society’s ‘value space’ – We are racing towards that tipping point
• Our current ‘resource to waste’ economy – Suppresses non-material, non-externalized values
– Limits innovation and the economy
• Can we innovate differently? – Is creativity really a black box?
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Enlarging our ‘value space’
• The ICT revolution offers the opportunity
• Decoupling of value creation and accumulation of matter/energy – The sharing economy – use ≠ ownership.
• We need cultural diversity to grow our economy – We cannot sustain ourselves without growth
– Green growth initiative
• Economy can be driven by spreading rather than concentrating information processing capacity – It depends what we attach value to!
– Social media, the web, smartphones, MOOC’s,
– We must allow other cultures to develop their own ways of information processing new values, new economy
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(Mega-)cities must design for change
• Will lose some of their predominance … – Adjustment of national rank-size curves under globalization
• Will gain in autonomy … – It’s where the rubber hits the road
• Cannot keep on expanding …
• Must find more effective ways to manage focused change … and stability • Designing for change – for ex.: building materials rented, not
owned: Delta Development
• More attention to novel ways to solve social challenges
• Plan ‘sandwiched’ decision-making … • Integrated top-down/bottom-up co-design (back to Simon)
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