Complexity, Cognition and the City

Abstract

Complexity is an interdisciplinary program publishing the best research and academic-level teaching on both fundamental and applied aspects of complex systemscutting across all traditional disciplines of the natural and life sciences, engineering, economics, medicine, neuroscience, social and computer science.Complex Systems are systems that comprise many interacting parts with the ability to generate a new quality of macroscopic collective behavior the manifestations of which are the spontaneous formation of distinctive temporal, spatial or functional structures. Models of such systems can be successfully mapped onto quite diverse "real-life" situations like the climate, the coherent emission of light from lasers, chemical reactiondiffusion systems, biological cellular networks, the dynamics of stock markets and of the internet, earthquake statistics and prediction, freeway traffic, the human brain, or the formation of opinions in social systems, to name just some of the popular applications.Although their scope and methodologies overlap somewhat, one can distinguish the following main concepts and tools: self-organization, nonlinear dynamics, synergetics, turbulence, dynamical systems, catastrophes, instabilities, stochastic processes, chaos, graphs and networks, cellular automata, adaptive systems, genetic algorithms and computational intelligence.The two major book publication platforms of the Springer Complexity program are the monograph series "Understanding Complex Systems" focusing on the various applications of complexity, and the "Springer Series in Synergetics", which is devoted to the quantitative theoretical and methodological foundations. In addition to the books in these two core series, the program also incorporates individual titles ranging from textbooks to major reference works. Future scientific and technological developments in many fields will necessarily depend upon coming to grips with complex systems. Such systems are complex in both their composition -typically many different kinds of components interacting simultaneously and nonlinearly with each other and their environments on multiple levels -and in the rich diversity of behavior of which they are capable. Editorial and Programme Advisory BoardThe Springer Series in Understanding Complex Systems series (UCS) promotes new strategies and paradigms for understanding and realizing applications of complex systems research in a wide variety of fields and endeavors. UCS is explicitly transdisciplinary. It has three main goals: First, to elaborate the concepts, methods and tools of complex systems at all levels of description and in all scientific fields, especially newly emerging areas within the life, social, behavioral, economic, neuro-and cognitive sciences (and derivatives thereof); second, to encourage novel applications of these ideas in various fields of engineering and computation such as robotics, nano-technology and informatics; third, to provide a single forum within which commonalities and differences in the workings of complex ...

The value of collective intentionality for understanding urban self-organization

“…The main objective is that self-organization cannot be seen as a predetermined or centrally coordinated method of participatory action. Acknowledging the nonlinear character of USO in participatory practice is not new (Portugali 2008(Portugali , 2011Rauws 2015;Roo, Hillier, and van Wezemael 2012). Recently, Boonstra and Boelens (2011) suggest that the socio-spatial relevance of USO has already been praised as a solution for easing contested participatory practices via the emergence of so-called new collectives (see also Boonstra 2015).…”

“…Self-organization refers to the evolutionary dynamics emerging out of the chaotic behavior of the elements in a system that aim to achieve equilibrium without external force (Ashby 1962;Jantsch 1980). This view on self-organization has gained recognition within the realms of social sciences, including planning (Doak and Karadimitriou 2007;Holling and Sanderson 1996;Karadimitriou 2010;Portugali 2011). While the world of physics and biology hardly can or should be translated to the realm of the social sciences (Flyvbjerg 2001), the complexity of self-organization, by analogy, could apply to the complex analytic reasoning of human actions.…”

“…If we believe that modern day participatory processes rely on the self-organized capacities of local communities, then perhaps USO can be considered as an important element in the discussion of participatory processes in the future. Whereas earlier work published on self-organization in planning (Boonstra and Boelens 2011;Portugali 2011) paved the way for its growing impact in theory and practice, little attention is given to the socio-psychological traits, such as collective intentionality, that are related to the concept. The purpose of this article is to establish why and how urban self-organization (USO) matters for understanding participatory planning processes, where individual action gains social support and in the context of everyday practices becomes part of the social reality.…”

“…This view on self-organization has also been adopted in spatial planning, where discourses on the concept also refer to USO as the emergent and cybernetic property of adaptive complex systems (Portugali 2008(Portugali , 2011. In an attempt to enrich the content of USO with notions of democratic decision-aiding in the agenda of new urban governance measures, Boonstra and Boelens (2011) explore in addition the role of USO via actor-network theory (ANT).…”

Cidade e interação: o papel do espaço urbano na organização social

“…Isso quer dizer que a informação espacial pode ser arranjada em níveis hierárquicos em nossas mentes. A probabilidade de um edifício ou lugar evocar uma representação mental compartilhada pelas pessoas é reforçada pela sua aparência física e identidade visual, assim como pela sua visibilidade e localização no ambiente urbano, e pela informação social que associamos a ele, via atividades lá realizadas (Faria & Krafta, 2003;Portugali, 2011);…”