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The complexity of cities: structure, mobility, correlations
| CRM- Centre de Recerca Matemātica
HOST ORGANIZATION
CRM- Centre de Recerca Matemātica
www.crm.cat
AREA OF KNOWLEDGE
Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering Panel
GROUP LEADER
Dr. Álvaro Corral
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RESEARCH PRODUCT / RESEARCH GROUP
Alvaro Corralīs personal Website
http://www.crm.cat/person/7/corral-cano-alvaro/
POSITION DESCRIPTION
Research Project / Research Group Description
Many problems that humankind faces arise from large human aggregations in the form of cities and megalopolis. An increasing number of people is living in urban areas, which poses formidable challenges regarding infrastructure, mobility, transport of goods,
sustainability and inequality. And although we collectively created those challenges, we do not know how they came to be, nor how to fix them.
Urban systems present statistical patterns caused by the interaction between smaller units. A fundamental problem is how human settlements scatter through a territory and cluster into large agglomerations. The current structure of cities has emerged from the
competition between top-down interventions and bottom-up self-organization, but frustration between different interactions leads to non-unique solutions for the morphology and non-unique distribution of functions. In addition, different feedback mechanisms
may lead to the reinforcement of segregation and exclusion. Fractal structures have been known to describe the outcome of such processes, whereas Zipfs law has been claimed to account for the overall population of such aggregations. Self-similar patterns
seem also to be present for many urban variables, but the relationship between processes that gave rise to such configurations is unknown. In addition, correlations between the different subsystems are most of the time ignored.
This project aims to address these issues from a three-fold approach: empirical, computational and theoretical. The use of large databases of population, infrastructure, mobility, etc. will lead to statistical facts that will be confronted with computational
modeling as well as with theoretical insights. In their turn, theoretical and computational insight will trigger new empirical questions. It will be fundamental to consider that the different urban descriptors are not independent but strongly entangled. It
is expected that the project will unveil fundamental principles of urban science.
Job position description
We are looking for predoctoral researchers with a broad interest in understanding the complexity of urban processes and with a cross-disciplinary attitude. Strong background in applied mathematics, stochastic processes, statistical physics, complex-systems
science, and/or computational modeling are required. The successful candidate will join the CRM Complex-Systems Group and will work under the co-supervision of Prof. Elsa Arcaute (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London).
Elsa Arcauteīs personal website
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/casa/dr-elsa-arcaute
More general information:
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