The majority of the world’s people now lives in cities, yet relatively little is known about urban systems, writes SFI External Professor Luis Bettencourt in a recent book review in Nature Geoscience. As the world becomes more urbanized, he says, a scholarly examination of city life is critically important.
Bettencourt's review of “Living in the Endless City,” a collection of essays on issues faced by residents and policy makers in three world cities, appears in the October 31 issue of Nature Geoscience.
“This book is a reminder that cities grow primarily as the result of the social and economic aspirations of common people,” Bettencourt said. “This diverse and often messy social city underpins everything else. Its social fabric is incredibly resilient both to natural disasters and to the more or less benign efforts of policymakers and urban planners.”
Read the review (October 31, 2011)
Watch the video about SFI's cities research (7 minutes)