Simple spatial scaling rules behind complex cities

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 1841 - 7
• Main Authors: Li, Ruiqi, Dong, Lei, Zhang, Jiang, Wang, Xinran, Wang, Wen-Xu, Di, Zengru, Stanley, H. Eugene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 28.11.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/766/530/2801; 639/766/530/2804; Cities; Complex networks; Euclidean space; Humanities and Social Sciences; Innovations; Mathematical models; MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; multidisciplinary; Population; Roads & highways; Scaling; Scaling laws; Science; Science & technology - other topics; Science (multidisciplinary); Socioeconomics; Spatial distribution; Statistical physics
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01882-w

Although most of wealth and innovation have been the result of human interaction and cooperation, we are not yet able to quantitatively predict the spatial distributions of three main elements of cities: population, roads, and socioeconomic interactions. By a simple model mainly based on spatial attraction and matching growth mechanisms, we reveal that the spatial scaling rules of these three elements are in a consistent framework, which allows us to use any single observation to infer the others. All numerical and theoretical results are consistent with empirical data from ten representative cities. In addition, our model can also provide a general explanation of the origins of the universal super- and sub-linear aggregate scaling laws and accurately predict kilometre-level socioeconomic activity. Our work opens a new avenue for uncovering the evolution of cities in terms of the interplay among urban elements, and it has a broad range of applications. Cities can be treated as dynamic complex systems being controlled by the interactions among people, whilst the detail remains largely unknown. Li et al. use spatial attraction together with matching growth to unify population, roads, and socioeconomic interactions crossing ten representative cities.