SCOUT· 63%1h 20m·2026-07-27·Science362 | Luis Bettencourt on the Universal Properties of Self-Organizing Cities
People who live in large cities produce more patents per person than those who live in small towns. They also walk faster down the street, and use less infrastructure per person. Indeed, the relationships between these quantities and city population obey power laws with apparently universal exponents, reminiscent of…
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What people are saying
“Great conversation but I have one BIG quibble; YOU DID NOT MENTION JANE JACOBS EVEN ONCE. She said all of this 60 years ago. Jacobs was a NYC activist, opponent of urban planning, and scourge of Robert Moses. Nobel-prize winning economist R…”
“Buckminster Fuller had a lot of good ideas”
“Sean needs to spend more time in his physics department and less time on youtube.... How dare you Sean.”
“Really enjoying this conversation. I’ve lived in the country and in the city.”
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