At the intersection of social science and physics, this stream of research identifies elementary properties to explain societal phenomena. We examine in particular research on the effect of population/city size.
Background readings
Bettencourt, 2015, Ch, "Cities as complex systems"
Optional readings
West, 2010, Ch2, “Integrated sustainability and the underlying threat of urbanization” in Global Sustainability: A Nobel Cause, ed. Schellnhuber.
Bettencourt, 2013, Sci, "The origins of scaling in cities"
Case-studies for presentation
Batty, Michael. 2013. “A Theory of City Size.” Science 340(6139):1418–19. doi: 10.1126/science.1239870.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A. 2013. “The Origins of Scaling in Cities.” Science 340(6139):1438–41. doi: 10.1126/science.1235823.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A., and José Lobo. 2016. “Urban Scaling in Europe.” Journal of The Royal Society Interface 13(116):20160005. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2016.0005.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A., José Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, and Geoffrey B. West. 2010. “Urban Scaling and Its Deviations: Revealing the Structure of Wealth, Innovation and Crime across Cities” edited by J. A. Añel. PLoS ONE 5(11):e13541. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013541.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A., José Lobo, Dirk Helbing, Christian Kühnert, and Geoffrey B. West. 2007. “Growth, Innovation, Scaling, and the Pace of Life in Cities.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(17):7301–6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0610172104.
Bettencourt, Luis M.A., José Lobo, and Deborah Strumsky. 2007. “Invention in the City: Increasing Returns to Patenting as a Scaling Function of Metropolitan Size.” Research Policy 36(1):107–20. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2006.09.026.
Jin, Ching, Chaoming Song, Johannes Bjelland, Geoffrey Canright, and Dashun Wang. 2019. “Emergence of Scaling in Complex Substitutive Systems.”
Li, Ruiqi, Lei Dong, Jiang Zhang, Xinran Wang, Wen-Xu Wang, Zengru Di, and H. Eugene Stanley. 2017. “Simple Spatial Scaling Rules behind Complex Cities.” Nature Communications 8(1):1841. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01882-w.
Mayhew, Bruce H. 1973. “System Size and Ruling Elites.” American Sociological Review 38(4):468. doi: 10.2307/2094216.
Mayhew, Bruce H., and Roger L. Levinger. 1976. “Size and the Density of Interaction in Human Aggregates.” American Journal of Sociology 82(1):86–110.
Mayhew, Bruce H., Roger L. Levinger, J. Miller McPherson, and Thomas F. James. 1972. “System Size and Structural Differentiation in Formal Organizations: A Baseline Generator for Two Major Theoretical Propositions.” American Sociological Review 37(5):629. doi: 10.2307/2093457.
Ortman, Scott G., Andrew H. F. Cabaniss, Jennie O. Sturm, and Luís M. A. Bettencourt. 2014. “The Pre-History of Urban Scaling.” PLOS ONE 9(2):e87902. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0087902.
Ortman, Scott G., Andrew H. F. Cabaniss, Jennie O. Sturm, and Luís M. A. Bettencourt. 2015. “Settlement Scaling and Increasing Returns in an Ancient Society.” Science Advances 1(1):e1400066. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1400066.
Ortman, Scott G., José Lobo, and Michael E. Smith. 2020. “Cities: Complexity, Theory and History” edited by P. F. Biehl. PLOS ONE 15(12):e0243621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243621.
Scheffer, Marten, Bas Van Bavel, Ingrid A. Van De Leemput, and Egbert H. Van Nes. 2017. “Inequality in Nature and Society.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(50):13154–57. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1706412114.
Schläpfer, Markus, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Sébastian Grauwin, Mathias Raschke, Rob Claxton, Zbigniew Smoreda, Geoffrey B. West, and Carlo Ratti. 2014. “The Scaling of Human Interactions with City Size.” Journal of The Royal Society Interface 11(98):20130789. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0789.
Thomas, R. J., and N. P. Mark. 2013. “Population Size, Network Density, and the Emergence of Inherited Inequality.” Social Forces 92(2):521–44. doi: 10.1093/sf/sot080.
Youn, Hyejin, Deborah Strumsky, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, and José Lobo. 2015. “Invention as a Combinatorial Process: Evidence from US Patents.” Journal of The Royal Society Interface 12(106):20150272. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2015.0272.
Youn, Hyejin, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, José Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, Horacio Samaniego, and Geoffrey B. West. 2016. “Scaling and Universality in Urban Economic Diversification.” Journal of The Royal Society Interface 13(114):20150937. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2015.0937.