Inventing Future Cities

book cover

I’ve just come across this new book by Mike Batty that looks really interesting.

Cities are largely unpredictable because they are complex systems that are more like organisms than machines. Neither the laws of economics nor the laws of mechanics apply; cities are the product of countless individual and collective decisions that do not conform to any grand plan. They are the product of our inventions; they evolve. In Inventing Future Cities, I explore what we need to understand about cities in order to invent their future.

This book attempts to communicate many of the ideas concerning science, prediction and complexity that have been useful in thinking about cities and urban planning in the last fifty years.

For more info, or to buy the book, see Mike’s blog.