Category Archives: Evolution

Evolution, Darwin, Geddes, and the Growth of Cities

Cities as Organisms

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Michael Batty

You go to conferences and learn about older papers that you should have known about. This short article from 1999 by Thomas Graedel poses the key issues about energy, ecosystems and cities, part of a series from the National Academy … Continue reading →

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Frozen Accidents

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Michael Batty

Murray Gell-Mann says the  “accumulation of frozen accidents is what gives the world its effective complexity.” These are events that define path dependence. The idea that a city is a sequence of accidents sharpens our sense of cities as patterns of regularity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Chaos, Complex Systems, Evolution, Path Dependence | Leave a comment

Embracing Urban Evolution

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Michael Batty

describes a rather innovative approach to designing the organic city. Ten architecture offices in Holland and China built a city in relay through 10 stages effectively mirroring a process of organic emergence rather than a strict top down design. Click … Continue reading →

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The Heart of the City

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Michael Batty

Written by Victor Gruen in 1964 who said “I can visualize a metropolitan organism in which cells, each one consisting of a nucleus and a protoplasm, are combined into clusterizations to form specialised organs like towns…..” He portrayed this idealised … Continue reading →

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Darwin’s City

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Michael Batty

David Sloan Wilson is using the lens of evolution to understand life in the struggling city of Binghamton, NY. Next, he wants to improve it. Read Emma Marris’ article in Nature  Click Here to view & download the longer piece.

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