Complexity and Urban Coherence

Abstract

Structural principles developed in biology, computer science and economics are applied here to urban design. The coherence of urban form can be understood from the theory of complex interacting systems. Complex large-scale wholes are assembled from tightly interacting subunits at many different levels of scale, in a hierarchy going down to the natural structure of materials. A variety of elements and functions at the small scale is necessary for large-scale coherence. Dead urban and suburban regions may be resurrected in part by reconnecting their geometry. If these suggestions are put into practice, new projects could even approach the coherence that characterizes the best-loved urban regions built in the past. The proposed design rules differ radically from ones in use today. In a major revision of contemporary urban practice, it is shown that grid alignment does not connect a city, giving only the misleading impression of doing so. Although these ideas are consistent with the New Urbanism, they come from science and are independent of traditional urbanist arguments.