Category Archives: Emergence

Wicked Problems

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Michael Batty

40 years ago, Horst Rittel and Mel Webber published their seminal article entitled Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. In it, they argued that many, if not most, problems in cities that planners were engaged in ‘solving’, tended to … Continue reading →

Posted in Complexity, Emergence, Information | Leave a comment

CA Models: A Progress Report

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Michael Batty

12 years ago we held a meeting in CASA on Cellular Automata Models. David O’Sullivan and Paul Torrens, both PhD students at the time – in fact David had finished and it was just before he went to Penn State … Continue reading →

Posted in Agent-Based Models, Cellular Automata, Complexity, Emergence, Hierarchy | Leave a comment

Phil Ball’s Little Masterpiece

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Michael Batty

Phil Ball’s little book is one of the best summaries I have come across on complexity theory and its applications. This little triumph of clarity argues that society’s problems are those of highly connected systems. The book has been written … Continue reading →

Posted in Complexity, Connectivity, Emergence, Hierarchy, Networks, Uncategorized | Leave a comment