Patterns of Interactions of the Complex City System: Emotional Urban Objects as Triggering Agents – A Secondary Publication

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the patterns of interactions resulting from the positive and negative emotional events that occur in cities, considering them as complex systems. It explores, from the imaginaries, how certain urban objects can act as emotional agents and how these events affect the urban system as a whole. An adaptive complex systems perspective is used to analyze these patterns. The results show patterns in the processes and dynamics that occur in cities based on the objects that affect the emotions of the people who live there. These patterns depend on the characteristics of the emotional charge of urban objects, but they can be generalized in the following process: (1) immediate reaction by some individuals; (2) emotions are generated at the individual level which begins to generalize, permuting to a collective emotion; (3) a process of reflection is detonated in some individuals from the reading of collective emotions; (4) integration/significance in the community both at the individual and collective level, on the concepts, roles and/or functions that give rise to the process in the system. Therefore, it is clear that emotions play a significant role in the development of cities and these aspects should be considered in the design strategies of all kinds of projects for the city. Future extensions of this work could include a deeper analysis of specific emotional events in urban environments, as well as possible implications for urban policy and decision making.