Cities as self-organising systems

A theory of cities as self-organising systems has two parts: on the one hand, a theory of how cities are shaped by spatial laws. In this theory characteristically urban space patterns are associated with cognitive as well as to social and economic factors; on the other hand, a theory of how the emergent patterns of urban space over time shape movement, and through this shape land use patterns, leading through feedback and multiplier effects, to the generic form of the city as a foreground network of linked centres at all scales set into a background network of largely residential space. See: Generic city.

Sources

Hillier, B. (1996, 2007), Space is the Machine: A Configurational Theory of Architecture. Space Syntax: London, UK. pp. vi