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Ego City: Cities Are Organized Like Human Brains - The Diigo Meta page

www.sciencedaily.com/...090903163945.htm - Cached - Annotated View

Yule Heibel's personal annotations on this page

lampertina
Lampertina bookmarked on 2009-10-07 cities neuroscience evolution urban_development

QUOTE
Cities are organized like brains, and the evolution of cities mirrors the evolution of human and animal brains, according to a new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
UNQUOTE
Comparing infrastructure to neural networks. Hm - legitimate, scientific, or overwrought metaphor? I can certainly see that "maintaining sufficient interconnectedness" is a problem for both brains and cities.

  • Just as advanced mammalian brains require a robust neural network to achieve richer and more complex thought, large cities require advanced highways and transportation systems to allow larger and more productive populations. The new study unearthed a striking similarity in how larger brains and cities deal with the difficult problem of maintaining sufficient interconnectedness.
  • “It seems both of these invisible hands have arrived at a similar conclusion: brains and cities, as they grow larger, have to be similarly densely interconnected to function optimally.”
  • As brains grow more complex from one species to the next, they change in structure and organization in order to achieve the right level of interconnectedness. One couldn’t simply grow a double-sized dog brain, for example, and expect it to have the same capabilities as a human brain. This is because, among other things, a human brain doesn’t merely have more “dog neurons,” but, instead, has neurons with a greater number of synapses than that of a dog – something crucial in helping to keep the human brain well connected.
  • As with brains, interconnectedness is also a critical component of the overall function of cities, Changizi said.
  • As cities and the neocortex grow in surface area, the number of connectors – highways in cities and pyramidal neurons in brains – increases more slowly, as surface area to the 3/4 power, Changizi found. This means the number of connectors increases in both brains and cities as S3/4, where S = surface area. Similarly, as cities and brains grow, the total number of highway exits and synapses — which share a similar function as terminal points along highways and neurons — increases with an exponent of about 9/8. The number of exits per highway and synapses per neuron were also closely aligned, with an exponent of approximately 3/8.
    • lampertina
      Lampertina on 2009-10-07
      Whoa, really? Highways are the connectors in cities? I'm calling BS.

This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Sep 2009, by someone privately.

  • 07 Oct 09
    lampertina
    Yule Heibel

    QUOTE
    Cities are organized like brains, and the evolution of cities mirrors the evolution of human and animal brains, according to a new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
    UNQUOTE
    Comparing infrastructure to neural networks. Hm - legitimate, scientific, or overwrought metaphor? I can certainly see that "maintaining sufficient interconnectedness" is a problem for both brains and cities.

    cities neuroscience evolution urban_development

    • Just as advanced mammalian brains require a robust neural network to achieve richer and more complex thought, large cities require advanced highways and transportation systems to allow larger and more productive populations. The new study unearthed a striking similarity in how larger brains and cities deal with the difficult problem of maintaining sufficient interconnectedness.
    • “It seems both of these invisible hands have arrived at a similar conclusion: brains and cities, as they grow larger, have to be similarly densely interconnected to function optimally.”
    • 3 more annotations...