Reconstructing Bologna. The City as an Emergent Computational System - A Study in the Complexity of Urban Structures. Part I: The Basic Idea and Fundamental Concepts

TL;DR

This paper conceptualizes Bologna's urban form as a complex, self-organizing computational system, applying complexity theory and universal evolution concepts to better understand urban development.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to urban analysis by modeling cities as emergent computational systems based on complexity and self-organized criticality theories.

Findings

Urban form modeled as a complex computational system

Application of universality in urban evolution

Framework for future empirical validation

Abstract

The conceptual background for a detailed study of the urban form of the city of Bologna is discussed with a view to modern methodological insight as it is being presented by recent results of complexity theory and the theory of self-organized criticality. The basic idea is to visualize the city of Bologna as an example of a massively parallely organized and interacting complex computational system in the sense of these recent theories. It is proposed to relate aspects of urban evolution to a universal concept of evolution which is governing all processes in nature. The universality of this approach is thought of as being an epistemological advantage as compared to more classical studies utilizing primarily local and specific methods for their modelling procedures. To actually establish whether this is in fact an advantage or not will be one of the main results of this present series of papers. In this very first part of the study, the basic idea is explicated in some detail, and the fundamental concepts are introduced in order to clarify the terminology utilized in the following. Two more parts of this study will follow in due time.