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  • © 2000

Self-Organization and the City

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  • This book uses techniques from dynamical complexity and synergetics to successfully tackle open questions in the social sciences.

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Synergetics (SSSYN)

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Table of contents (17 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-XVII
  2. Introduction

    1. Introduction

      • Juval Portugali
      Pages 1-5
  3. On Cities and Urbanism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7
    2. Cities as Concepts

      • Juval Portugali
      Pages 9-16
    3. Prototype Urbanisms

      • Juval Portugali
      Pages 17-47
    4. Self-Organizing Cities

      • Juval Portugali
      Pages 49-72
  4. Self-Organizing Planning

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 223-223
    2. Artificial Planning Experience

      • Juval Portugali
      Pages 251-258
  5. Synergetic Cities

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 259-259

About this book

Cities first came into existence more than five thousand years ago. How to deal with these partly fascinating, partly frightening creatures of mankind, both practically and intellectually, concerns all of us and, in particular, presents areal challenge to city planners. Each historical epoch has had its own par­ ticular attitudes associated with the "Zeitgeist". Accordingly, the planning and steering of cities were based on quite different criteria. But in spite of these differences, the concept of planning and steering was, and still is, the cornerstone of our dealing with cities. Nevertheless, the planner's dilemma is becoming more and more visible: cities and megacities seem to be un­ plannable. In this book, Juval Portugali intro duces a new idea: Cities are self­ organizing systems. To substantiate his revolutionary concept, he uses several interlinked methods. On the one hand, and to my own delight, he employs in his arguments theoretical tools developed in the interdisciplinary field of synergetics. On the other hand, jointly with his co-workers, he has performed detailed model calculations on cellular nets. It has been a great pleasure and a wonderful experience for me to discuss these concepts with Juval Portugali over a number of years. I was repeatedly and deeply impressed by the way he established profound and often surprising links to other fields of science.

Reviews

From the reviews
"The author and his associates (...) are to be congratulated on such a sustained and convincing tour de force. This book succintly and succesfully discusses urban process and urban revolution, the utility of heuristic models in studying social, economic, and cultural segregation in cities, and the development of synergetic theories of cities and city planning. (...) it deserves the very widest readership in urban planning and beyond." (Environment and Planning B, 2001)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Geography and the Human Environment, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Juval Portugali

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access