The Chaotic, Fractal and Complex City

Throughout history, cities have been the impetus for innovation and prosperity. This is where ideas started that transformed the cultural, economic and political environment globally in the past and presumably in the future. Granted, the Internet is a vehicle for sharing ideas, but implementation of concepts is not done in virtual space, but in real time and real space. If you examine where ideas happened in the past at such centers as Florence, London, Paris, New York, ‘Silicon Valley’ (the greater San Jose area) and Curitiba, Brazil, one will find that there were commonalities that resulted in the spread of this wealth to other locations. What made these places an ‘initiator’ in the philosophy of ‘fractal change” and ultimately prosperity? We have to inspect these places and determine if they ‘shed some light’ on what are the prerequisites for creating ‘fractals’ that will transform urban areas again into loci of growth and prosperity? Juxtaposing the dynamic nature of these ur...

The spring volume of Urbana: Urban Affairs and Public Policy has been posted: http://www.tamuk.edu/geo/urbana/spring2011/ . This volume, as previous ones, includes quality articles related to the diverse nature of urbanism covering such topics as exurbanization, images of Hispanic urban migrants to the U.S. and democracy in local government in Brazil, with a focus on São Paulo. We think that those interested in urbanism will find these articles informative and intriguing in their outlooks. We are soliciting manuscripts for the fall volume and would welcome any academic manuscript related to urbanism. Please submit your manuscript to michaelamcadams@yahoo.com . Be looking for a redesign of Urbana in the coming months, as we enter the second decade of publishing on-line and open access. A new addition to the site can be found in the Past Volumes section, which now contains scanned volumes before it was published on line, found at: http://www.tamuk.edu/geo/urbana/Past_Volumes_201...

An implied spatial message of the monolith, since it is placed near a spring and associated irrigation works, by the leaders of the settlement is that “water is the 'life-blood' of our settlement and the reason that the citizens of the settlement can avail themselves to its benefits is related to our leadership in constructing hydraulics for irrigation and determining the time of planting through the calendar we developed.” This message's vehicle is a collection of powerful spiritual metaphors that would have been known to the villagers of Tamtoc which would have cemented or sanctified the role of the leaders/priests as being the providers of one of the basic elements of city public welfare—water. The monolith also attests to the importance of women in society as the ultimate source of life and also of importance of female leadership, hence the predominately female sacrificial priest as the overseer of the process of life including time and its resources (in this case wate...

I am posting this series of blog entries that will later be featured as a commentary in the new Spring volume of Urbana ( http://www.tamuk.edu/geo/Urbana / which is expected to be available in a week or less. Drawing by Néstor Mora Alvarez, Courtesy of El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH)-National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico About a year ago, I visited the newly opened archeological zone of Tamtoc in the State of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. I was impressed by many things at this site, but particularly by a carved stone relief near the spring at the edge of the river, which defines the perimeter of the settlement. The relief which is known as el monolito de Tamtoc (the monolith of Tamtoc) or la Piedra Calendárica de Tamtoc--Monumento 32 (the Calendar Stone of Tamtoc, Monument 32—the official title) which was recently excavated (February 2005) represents a significant find on multiple levels. The featured drawing is a detailed drawing by Nésto...

(photo of a neighborhood in Detroit found at City-Data at http://www.city-data.com/ In a recent article in Newsweek, 10 cities were listed as dying cities. The characteristics of many of these cities are similar. Go to the following link: http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/21/america-s-dying-cities.html . MIT did a study on forgotten cities, which are generally smaller cities which have been victims of deindustrialization: http://web.mit.edu/dusp/dusp_extension_unsec/people/faculty/lhoyt/Hoyt_Leroux_FC.pdf I would like to add another term, "hollow cities" which refers to the creation of the areas of abandoned and desolate urban cores surrounding by prosperous suburbs. All urban areas between 2000 and 2010 have seen decline in the central city. What is appparent that the 'dying cities" show this charateristic in an extreme way. In the case of Detroit, the dying core is surrounded by affluent suburbs. This leads to a possible scenario where Detoit will collaps...

(O'hare International interior photo from Fact Monster at http://www.factmonster.com/us/history/ohare-international-airport.htmll airport photo by Carol M. Highsmith) In a recent issue of Time Magazine (17 March 2011), Pico Iyer , the author of the book The Global Soul which is about airports and movement, claims that airports will become the primary focus/node of cities. He states,” The days when we built our airports around cities now seem distant; in the new, mobile century, we build our cities around airports.” While this seems novel to Mr. Iyer, it is not. Transportation nodes have always been the center for cities: key junctures along land routes, ports, river terminals, highway junctions and railroad stations. I am familiar with this topic as my dissertation concerned the land use impacts of airports. Based on my dissertation and other more recent research about cities and globalization, I would like to clarify that an airport’s influence as a nodal attractor for land...

The situation in Cairo caused me to think about urban spaces. It is noteworthy that the main protest is in a central plaza (Tahrir Square) and that further protests are outside the state television building and president's palace. Obviously, the protestors are very aware of these uses of physical space within this context has political symbology and are metaphors for larger issues. Although the impact of social networking is important, the actual protest is similar to others throughout history. But, it is different due to power of communication in this time period. While the protesters are in a physical space addressing national issues, their audience is ultimately international. The power of social networking via the internet is important on a local scale and internationally. Scales and distances make no difference. What is important is that this is all playing out within an urban setting.