PARENT SESSION
Symposium 9: Spatial heterogeneity in urban ecosystems: Integration and scaling in coupled natural-human systems
Organized by: ML Cadenasso, M Grove, and STA Pickett
Tuesday, August 9, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 517 C, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Allometric scaling and urban systems.
Lobo, Jose*,1, van der Leeuw, Sander1, 1 Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
ABSTRACT- Scaling principles are an important form in which underlying principles of system construction reveal themselves. It is through networks that matter, energy, information and knowledge are transmitted among and between the various entities and actors constituting cities, and these networks constrain the direct needs of the individual entities as well as the structure of the system and its dynamics. A "network perspective" has provided great insights into the origins of scaling phenomena in the biological realm and some of these ideas and methods can prove useful for the study of scaling in urban systems. But we find that there are important ways in which scaling in biological systems and scaling in urban systems differ from each other. There are three salient facts about cities (in modern societies): urban environments are the incubators for innovation; the size (as measured in terms of population) distribution of cities within national (political and economic) boundaries follow a scaling relationship (the celebrated "Zipf's Law"); and cities are embedded within functional hierarchies. Can these three phenomena be brought under the same explanatory framework? A group of researchers -- spanning a variety of disciplines and research institutions -- are making the epistemological bet that the answer is "yes." They argue that the different kinds of cross-cutting networks that are manifest in urban system, and scaling laws may together provide the key to an unified understanding of these three phenomena.
Key words: Scaling, Urban Systems