The City Grows in a Branching Pattern

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The city does grow in a very branching pattern, as batty and longley have pointed out. There's a big bump at that urban edge because people pay a premium to live on the urban edge. We need to pofuse urban fabric with green space. And part of that is because our theories of city building have just not factured in the immenity values green space and urbanaries. It would require a certin amout of political will power to make those changes. But i'd like to think that they're solvable, though not intrinsic to the situation.

The concept of the city is a crucial one for human civilization: people living in proximity, bringing in resources from outside, separated from the labors of subsistence so they can engage in the trade of goods and ideas. But we are still learning how cities grow and adapt to new conditions, as well as how we can best guide them to be livable as well as functional. I talk with urban scientist Catherine Brinkley about the structure of cities, including the fractal nature of their shapes, as well as what we can do to make cities thrive as much as possible.

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Catherine Brinkley received a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning as well as a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently Associate Professor of Human Ecology and Faculty Director at the Center for Regional Change at the University of California, Davis. She has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, and the Santa Fe Institute.