a co-evolutionary perspective on urban dynamics

A Co-evolutionary Perspective on Urban Dynamics

Plenary paper, Foresight/Complexity Lens Symposia

July 9, 2015

Sander van der Leeuw

Arizona State University

Santa Fe Institute

7/9-10/2015 Foresight/Complexity Lens 2015 2

London 1850’s

Paris 1950’s Manila 2000’s

For most of human history, cities were slums! Who would want to live there?

Leaning from the past, for the future

• To understand the past, science uses an ‘ex post’ perspective – Search for ‘origins’ and

explanations – Relating only present and past – Reduction of dimensionality

• We need to have an ‘ex ante’ perspective – Focus on the emergence of

novelty – The world as a complex system – Increase in dimensionality

• The more we think we know, the less we do know


Janus

What does the complexity lens contribute?

• Relationships, networks, flows

• Inversion of Occam’s razor

• Holistic intellectual fusion

• Multi-scalar, open systems

• Processes between chance and necessity


• Learning from the past, about the present, for the future

• Model building as tool for understanding • Ontological uncertainty, unintended

consequences

The ‘complexity lens’ to study urban systems

• A global network in its non-urban context

• Focus on edges and nodes – Connectivity and network structure of urban systems

– Functional relationships of nodes to each other and their environment

– Heterarchical and hierarchical aspects of information-processing (Herbert Simon)

• Increase dimensionality of our perspective

• Compare decisions made to options not chosen – Probability and risk assessment

– The role of unintended consequences


A theory of urban dynamics?

• Ultimate, not proximate explanation

• Based on the most general characteristics of humans

– Live by processing matter and energy

– Organize by processing information

• Matter and energy cannot be shared; information can

• Flows of energy, matter and information the basic metabolism of human societies

– They follow different patterns

– Energy: dendritic; information: sharing


Allometric scaling of urban systems


The core driver : information processing

• To harness resources, humans organize

• At the individual level: – Problem solving structures knowledge --> increases

information processing capacity ––> allows the cognition of new data, problems ––> creates new knowledge

• At the collective level: – Limits to individual information processing ––> more people

involved ––> more need for resources ––> more information processing ––> more knowledge ––> more resources used

• Societies as flow structures dissipating chaos by aligning people, institutions, ideas, resources – Requires potential to flow: innovation provides this


The information dynamic


Core processes information faster than periphery, gathers more information, attracts more processing capacity, innovates … and harnesses energy

If the process is hampered, the potential disappears, the structure dissipates …

… and eventually collapses

Why villages? • Sedentary organization reduces

search time for interactions

• Larger groups; higher population densities

• Local investment in (transformation of) environment: agriculture, herding – Interactive socio-environmental systems

• Novel topologies: solid around void – Containers, dwellings

• Information processing local – Homogeneous information pool

• Stable values confined to basic needs

• Environmental differences initiate complementarities



What are the new dynamics?

• Reciprocal relationship to environment – Intervention in nature – Unintended consequences – Cumulative shifts in risk spectrum – Path dependency

• Control of environmental risk – Simplify the environment; differentiate space

• The emphasis shifts to collective problem-solving – Collaboration, communication, diversification – Group growth

• The cost is growing social complexity – Increasing investment in maintaining society – Increasing societal risks

The urban transition

• As population aggregates grow, growing incidence of conflict

• Social complexity drives functional differentiation – Crafts, (semi) specialization,

• Inter-village communication causes differentiation in local information-processing – Networks now exceed single villages

• Expansion of ‘value space’ – New ideas enable functional differentiation

– Crafts, exchange and trade

• Towns part of networks: urban systems – Look at connectivity, functional differentiation



Cities emerge in clusters, invent accounts, writing, law, administration etc.

Networks Clerks

Laws

Writing Counting Monumental buildings

Organized religion


The urban way of life

• Resource availability constrains the growth of cities – Energy + matter savings do not create cities; need to

solve problems drives aggregation

– Feedback loop: information processing out, resources in

• Hierarchization of society – Information is power, is wealth

– From ‘power to’ to ‘power over’

• Urban innovation is essential – Attracts people and uses their cognitive dimensions

– Innovation drives urbanization and vice-versa

• Institutionalization of social behavior – Counting, writing, administration, laws


c. 1800 AD: The Urban Explosion

• c. 1800 fossil energy lifts resource constraint – Urban explosion

– Cost of innovation down

• Industrial revolution – Innovation becomes endemic,

supply driven

– Faster, faster, faster, not unlike a Ponzi Scheme

• Path dependency remains

• Is innovation overtaking our societies?

We need 100 watts to survive; in the US we harness 11,000 watts/person, invested in society, infrastructure and material culture

The future of urban systems is nonlinear…

• Linear (BaU) scenario: 80% of population urban by 2100

• But we’re in a complex system with unintended consequences

– ICT revolution undermines the need for spatial concentration in innovation

– Climate change forces us to reduce transport cost

– Food-water-energy nexus may constrain BaU scenario

• Dispersed settlement is possible (ICT), saves energy (local generation), improves resilience (community coherence)

• Innovation in the current paradigm has been destructive!

– We need to rethink innovation and its suppression together


“It’s the economy, stupid!”

• Economy is about allocating value in a value system – ‘What we’ve never thought about’ bounds a value system

• Western value system is outcome of path-dependency – Leads to more and more complex ideas, structures,

institutions within a defined value space – Ultimately the unintended consequences of its own actions

overwhelm any human society’s ‘value space’ – We are racing towards that tipping point

• Our current ‘resource to waste’ economy – Suppresses non-material, non-externalized values

– Limits innovation and the economy

• Can we innovate differently? – Is creativity really a black box?


Enlarging our ‘value space’

• The ICT revolution offers the opportunity

• Decoupling of value creation and accumulation of matter/energy – The sharing economy – use ≠ ownership.

• We need cultural diversity to grow our economy – We cannot sustain ourselves without growth

– Green growth initiative

• Economy can be driven by spreading rather than concentrating information processing capacity – It depends what we attach value to!

– Social media, the web, smartphones, MOOC’s,

– We must allow other cultures to develop their own ways of information processing new values, new economy


(Mega-)cities must design for change

• Will lose some of their predominance … – Adjustment of national rank-size curves under globalization

• Will gain in autonomy … – It’s where the rubber hits the road

• Cannot keep on expanding …

• Must find more effective ways to manage focused change … and stability • Designing for change – for ex.: building materials rented, not

owned: Delta Development

• More attention to novel ways to solve social challenges

• Plan ‘sandwiched’ decision-making … • Integrated top-down/bottom-up co-design (back to Simon)


a co-evolutionary perspective on urban dynamics

Documents