Cybernetic cities: designing and controlling adaptive and robust urban systems

Carlos Gershenson, Paolo Santi and Carlo Ratti

Chapter 10 in Handbook on Cities and Complexity, 2021, pp 195-208 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Cities are changing constantly. All urban systems face different conditions from day to day. Even when averaged regularities can be found, urban systems will be more efficient if they can adapt to changes at the same temporal scales at which these occur. Still, the functionality of urban systems must be robust to changes, either caused by adaptation or by other factors. Technology can assist humans in designing and regulating this adaptation and robustness. For this purpose, we propose a description of cities as cybernetic systems. We identify three main components: information, algorithms, and agents, which we illustrate with current and future examples. The implications of cybernetic cities are manifold, with direct impacts on mobility, sustainability, resilience, governance, and society. Still, the potential of a cybernetic perspective on cities will not depend so much on technology as on how we use it.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Geography; Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781789900118/9781789900118.00018.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:18907_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().