The Profusion of the City

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The word profusion, correct and fam rong is borrowed from, like our circulatory system? Yes, it's borrowed from, from biology. And so what you're saying is that if we were thinking about cities as just know, who wants to live next to who, or what business wants to living next to what business, fine, but you're missing something. You're missing all this exchange with the outside world,. The need for that exchange is going to give you different s for the shape and morphology of the cities sorit. Especially considering that these patterns have held true for hundreds of thousands of years.

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.