"superlinear cities"

[postrodent]

 From Stewart Brand by way of Bruce Sterling's blog: "Superlinear cities", a comparison of how energy use and productivity scales between lifeforms and cities. Very interesting and full of factoids to drag out in defense of urbanism, although it contains at least one remark that seems very fatuous to me: ""Cities tolerate crazy people [...]

Comments

[crankycoyote]

My thought is that, assuming West is correct (a big assumption), the superlinear nature of city growth may depend largely on factors that aren't identified in the research. Disease, particularly - we're living in a belle époque created by cheap and effective antibiotics, and I wonder what's going to happen when that changes.

I haven't had time to parse through all of this, but there are apparently some issues with West's research and conclusions:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.4101

The comments on the original TED talk are interesting:
http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations.html

I was also referred to this as a part of that discussion: So You Think You Have a Power Law - Well Isn't That Special?