Deciphering Urban Morphogenesis: A Morphospace Approach

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Netto, Vini, Cacholas, Caio, Daems, Dries, Ribeiro, Fabiano, Davis, Howard, Lenz, Daniel
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866910712144592896
author Netto, Vini
Cacholas, Caio
Daems, Dries
Ribeiro, Fabiano
Davis, Howard
Lenz, Daniel
author_facet Netto, Vini
Cacholas, Caio
Daems, Dries
Ribeiro, Fabiano
Davis, Howard
Lenz, Daniel
contents Cities emerged independently across different world regions and historical periods, raising fundamental questions: How did the first urban settlements develop? What social and spatial conditions enabled their emergence? Are these processes universal or context-dependent? Moreover, what distinguishes cities from other human settlements? This paper investigates the drivers behind the creation of cities through a hybrid approach that integrates urban theory, the biological concept of morphospace (the space of all possible configurations), and archaeological evidence. It explores the transition from sedentary hunter-gatherer communities to urban societies, highlighting fundamental forces converging to produce increasingly complex divisions of labour as a central driver of urbanization. Morphogenesis is conceptualized as a trajectory through morphospace, governed by structure-seeking selection processes that balance density, permeability, and information as critical dimensions. The study highlights the non-ergodic nature of urban morphogenesis, where configurations are progressively selected based on their fitness to support the diversifying interactions between mutually dependent agents. The morphospace framework effectively distinguishes between theoretical spatial configurations, non-urban and proto-urban settlements, and contemporary cities. This analysis supports the proposition that cities emerge and evolve as solutions balancing density, permeability, and informational organization, enabling them to support increasingly complex societal functions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_13771
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deciphering Urban Morphogenesis: A Morphospace Approach
Netto, Vini
Cacholas, Caio
Daems, Dries
Ribeiro, Fabiano
Davis, Howard
Lenz, Daniel
Computers and Society
Social and Information Networks
Physics and Society
Cities emerged independently across different world regions and historical periods, raising fundamental questions: How did the first urban settlements develop? What social and spatial conditions enabled their emergence? Are these processes universal or context-dependent? Moreover, what distinguishes cities from other human settlements? This paper investigates the drivers behind the creation of cities through a hybrid approach that integrates urban theory, the biological concept of morphospace (the space of all possible configurations), and archaeological evidence. It explores the transition from sedentary hunter-gatherer communities to urban societies, highlighting fundamental forces converging to produce increasingly complex divisions of labour as a central driver of urbanization. Morphogenesis is conceptualized as a trajectory through morphospace, governed by structure-seeking selection processes that balance density, permeability, and information as critical dimensions. The study highlights the non-ergodic nature of urban morphogenesis, where configurations are progressively selected based on their fitness to support the diversifying interactions between mutually dependent agents. The morphospace framework effectively distinguishes between theoretical spatial configurations, non-urban and proto-urban settlements, and contemporary cities. This analysis supports the proposition that cities emerge and evolve as solutions balancing density, permeability, and informational organization, enabling them to support increasingly complex societal functions.
title Deciphering Urban Morphogenesis: A Morphospace Approach
topic Computers and Society
Social and Information Networks
Physics and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.13771