Abstract
By means of rich data, studies on urban scaling suggested that many urban properties scale with city size in universal ways. A recent study suggested an explanation why the behaviour of citizens in small and large cities differs qualitatively, by deriving the urban agents' behaviour from an extended version of Higgins’ regulatory focus theory regarding humans' motivational system. Based on several sets of laboratory experiments, this study demonstrated that urban context of large, fast-paced cities and that of small slow-paced cities encourage two distinctively different motivations and behaviours on the part of their inhabitants. What remains an open question following the above study, however, is the way these behavioural reactions are related to the dynamics of cities as complex, adaptive, self-organization systems. The aim of the present paper is to answer this open question. It does so from the theoretical perspective of Synergetics and its application to the domain of cities by means of synergetic inter-representation networks, information adaptation and their conjunction. From this conjunction, the paper suggests a theoretical interpretation associated with a mathematical model that links the theoretical framework to the empirical findings.
Highlights
The notions of synergetic inter-representation networks (SIRN) and information adaptation (IA) were introduced in some details in the past [15,16,22,23]; here, we focus on their conjunction (SIRNIA) as it is associated with urban dynamics
Our aim in this paper was to study the way humans’ basic motivational–behavioural tendencies are related to the dynamics of cities as complex, adaptive, self-organization systems—the ways the dynamics of cities of different sizes is affected by, and is affecting, the promotion and prevention tendencies of their inhabitants and users
We explored these issues from the theoretical perspective of synergetics approach to complexity theories of cities through the notions of SIRN, IA and their conjunction (SIRNIA)
Summary
The notion of urban allometry suggests that, similar to naturalorganic complex systems, in cities too it can be shown statistically ‘that important demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioural urban indicators are, on average, scaling functions of city size that are quantitatively consistent across different nations and times’ [1]. Bettencourt et al.’s allometric approach attempted to quantify this view, relate it to city size, and show statistically that (contrary to organic systems) ‘the pace of urban life is predicted to increase with [city] size’. As they demonstrated, this property shows itself in the various urban indicators that scale superlinearly (β > 1) with city size, ranging from innovation and wealth creation to crime rates, rates of spread of infectious diseases such as AIDS, and even pedestrian walking speed. An alternative interpretation of the relations between the macroscopic properties of urban scaling and the microscopic aspects of urban agents’ behaviour was recently suggested by Ross & Portugali [7]. RFT and its extension to cities as urban regulatory focus (URF) are described
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
