2015
DOI: 10.1111/jiec.12239
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Why Do Cities Grow? Insights from Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics at the Urban and Global Scales

Abstract: SummaryThis forum article explores thermodynamic understanding of the growth of cities, including theoretical foundations, observations, and analysis. The general theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics is reviewed, recognizing differences in interpretation between Prigogine and Schneider and Kay as well as discussing the hypothesis of maximum entropy production. Calculations of exergy gradients in a few cities and settlements, along with measures of anthropogenic heat loss in further cities, support the notio… Show more

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Cited by 91 publications
(23 citation statements)
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“…From 1900-2011, the world's urban population grew from 220 million (13% of the world's population) to 3,530 million (52% of the world's population) (1,2). This phenomenon of urbanization has prompted the development of a science of cities (3,4), including interdisciplinary contributions on scaling laws (5,6), networks (7), and the thermodynamics of cities (8,9). The growth of cities also has been strongly linked to global challenges of environmental sustainability, making the study of urban energy and material flows, e.g., for determining greenhouse gas emissions from cities and urban resource efficiency (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19), important.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…From 1900-2011, the world's urban population grew from 220 million (13% of the world's population) to 3,530 million (52% of the world's population) (1,2). This phenomenon of urbanization has prompted the development of a science of cities (3,4), including interdisciplinary contributions on scaling laws (5,6), networks (7), and the thermodynamics of cities (8,9). The growth of cities also has been strongly linked to global challenges of environmental sustainability, making the study of urban energy and material flows, e.g., for determining greenhouse gas emissions from cities and urban resource efficiency (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19), important.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The third group of articles deals with urban systems, which has long been a focal area of IE. Bristow and Kennedy () explore how thermodynamics can inform and characterize the growth of cities. They frame cities as systems that grow because they are dissipative structures, where order is created and held by importing negative entropy from the city surroundings.…”
Section: Overview Of the Special Issuementioning
confidence: 99%
“…The science of city is mainly devoted to the application of concepts and methods of complex systems to cities [6][7][8][9]. A city is indeed an adaptive dynamical system which grows in size and population, and consumes energy to maintain its function and structure [10][11][12][13][14].…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%