Geoffrey West: Urban Scaling Laws and the Future of Cities (470)

Podcast: What is The Future for Cities? · Fanni Melles

Opublikowano: 2026-10-07

Geoffrey West, theoretical physicist and distinguished professor at the Santa Fe Institute, on urban scaling laws,cities that grow faster than exponential, and what happens when populations start to shrink. He treats the future of cities as the future of the planet. Cities drive resource use and climate change because that is where the people are. Without immigration, much of Europe and the United States would already be shrinking, even while other places cannot build housing fast enough. A city, for him, is a machine for social interaction: A talks to B talks to C. Globalization widens t...