Cities and Complexity: Understanding Cities with Cellular Automata, Agent-Based Models, and Fractals (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Cities and Complexity unites into an integrated whole pathbreaking methods in urban research centered on ideas of nonlinear dynamic emergence and self-organization. This book will be an ideal text for advanced students of urban systems and an invaluable guide for their instructors, as well as for practitioners who seek to simulate alternative futures."
—Brian J. L. Berry, Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor and Dean of the School of Social Science, University of Texas at Dallas

"Batty is a master at presenting challenging material in 'gentle though rigorous' ways, judiciously combining text, graphics, and notation, and moving from easy-to-grasp toy problems to real examples."
—Helen Couclelis, Professor, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara

"In this book Batty clearly demonstrates that decentralized, local spatial processes can produce complex patterns of urban dynamics that are both visually arresting and scientifically compelling. The novelty of the book is that it blends cellular automata and agent-based models, making it of interest to anyone concerned with spatial social science—geographers, economists, environmental scientists, urban sociologists, international relations scholars, planners, and policy specialists. More broadly, the book will be a definitive addition to the emerging field of computational social science."
—Robert L. Axtell, Center on Social and Economic Dynamics, The Brookings Institution

"Michael Batty provides a powerful new way of thinking about cities in terms of cells and agents, demonstrating how highly organized spatial patterns can emerge from surprisingly simple rules and processes. His many beautiful, meticulously developed examples provide fascinating insights into the evolution of urban forms, and will serve as wonderful starting points for further research."
—William J. Mitchell, Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences, MIT

Product Description

As urban planning moves from a centralized, top-down approach to a decentralized, bottom-up perspective, our conception of urban systems is changing. In Cities and Complexity, Michael Batty offers a comprehensive view of urban dynamics in the context of complexity theory, presenting models that demonstrate how complexity theory can embrace a myriad of processes and elements that combine into organic wholes. He argues that bottom-up processes—in which the outcomes are always uncertain—can combine with new forms of geometry associated with fractal patterns and chaotic dynamics to provide theories that are applicable to highly complex systems such as cities.

Batty begins with models based on cellular automata (CA), simulating urban dynamics through the local actions of automata. He then introduces agent-based models (ABM), in which agents are mobile and move between locations. These models relate to many scales, from the scale of the street to patterns and structure at the scale of the urban region. Finally, Batty develops applications of all these models to specific urban situations, discussing concepts of criticality, threshold, surprise, novelty, and phase transition in the context of spatial developments. Every theory and model presented in the book is developed through examples that range from the simplified and hypothetical to the actual. Deploying extensive visual, mathematical, and textual material, Cities and Complexity will be read both by urban researchers and by complexity theorists with an interest in new kinds of computational models.

Sample chapters and examples from the book, and other related material, can be found at http://www.complexcity.info.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 542 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (September 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262524791
• ISBN-13: 978-0262524797
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #535,023 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous resource, June 22, 2006

By	Paul A. Peters (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cities and Complexity: Understanding Cities with Cellular Automata, Agent-Based Models, and Fractals (Hardcover)

This book is an immense collection of research on the application of complex systems to urban spatial analysis. While this book is not extensive and is probably not meant as a textbook on complex systems in its entirety, I highly recommend it for those interested in urban spatial analysis. The applications of the techniques go beyond geography and are useful in sociology, economics, or urban planning. A caveat that I should add is that the book is quite dense with methods and formulas and is probably not best to approach this book without some knowledge of advanced statistics. However, the theoretical overviews provided more than allow for those without this background to get something out of it. In short, if you are a graduate student, professor, or researcher I'd recommend this book for an insightful and important take on the nature of cities and urban analysis.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive and Complex, March 4, 2008

By	Andrew Jenks "ajenks" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Prior to buying this book there were no reviews which mentioned that this was more a textbook than an in-depth but casual read.

This book is an exhaustive look at urban planning and an understanding of cities and the patterns of growth and population. While this is exactly what I was looking for, it is extremely dense and full of charts and graphs of advanced mathematical equations. I have no problem with this, however this is much more a textbook than a casual read with some interesting equations to backup the argument proposed.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cities unwrapped, September 25, 2008

By	orkcloud - See all my reviews

Great as starting point for urban develop.
This book is like "Every thing you want to know about cities growth and you, probably wouldn't think of...."

Professor Batty should be consider to urban modeling as Mandelbrot is to fractals.