Author Archives: Michael Batty

About Michael Batty

I chair CASA at UCL which I set up in 1995. I am Bartlett Professor In UCL.

Emergence, What Is It?

A complex system is often defined as ‘emergent’ when some process generates unexpected, surprising and ordered outcomes. The classic exemplar is segregation in Schelling’s model. But there is strong, weak, first order, second order emergence. Click to read Nigel Gilbert’s … Continue reading

Posted in Complex Systems, Emergence | Leave a comment

Ranks of Flows: Network Scaling

The TfL Oyster Card Tube and Train flow volumes over 24 hrs at 666 (don’t worry about the number) hubs reveal classic diurnal peaks but the profiles are far from power laws. If anything, they are lognormal. Watch the Vimeo Clip. … Continue reading

Posted in Flows, Fluxes, Networks, Social Physics, Transport, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Flux by Broken Cities

Bit of an experiment really as it is the weekend. Thought I would embed some background music into the website and the album Flux from the indie group Broken Cities reflects the themes of a Science of Cities. And the … Continue reading

Posted in Flows, Fluxes | Leave a comment

The Heartbeat of the City

Inspired by Victor Gruen’s heart of the city posted here a little while ago, Jon Reade’s 24 hour movie of traffic on London’s railways (tube+overground) moves us a little closer to Leonardo’s analogy of the city as body. More biology perhaps … Continue reading

Posted in Flows, Fluxes, Networks, Transport | Leave a comment

How Big Can a City Get?

This question was rarely asked in the 20th century where the focus was on optimum city size. Now cities seemingly can grow forever but as Dobbs and Remes of McKinsey say, as they grow, cities become more ‘complex’. Managing this complexity … Continue reading

Posted in Complex Systems, Urban Dynamics, Urban Growth | Comments Off on How Big Can a City Get?