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Urban characteristics attributable to density-driven tie formation

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Pan

    (Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Gourab Ghoshal

    (Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Present address: Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA)

  • Coco Krumme

    (Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Manuel Cebrian

    (Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    University of California at San Diego
    National Information and Communications Technology Australia)

  • Alex Pentland

    (Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Motivated by empirical evidence on the interplay between geography, population density and societal interaction, we propose a generative process for the evolution of social structure in cities. Our analytical and simulation results predict both super-linear scaling of social-tie density and information contagion as a function of the population. Here we demonstrate that our model provides a robust and accurate fit for the dependency of city characteristics with city-size, ranging from individual-level dyadic interactions (number of acquaintances, volume of communication) to population level variables (contagious disease rates, patenting activity, economic productivity and crime) without the need to appeal to heterogeneity, modularity, specialization or hierarchy.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Pan & Gourab Ghoshal & Coco Krumme & Manuel Cebrian & Alex Pentland, 2013. "Urban characteristics attributable to density-driven tie formation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-7, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2961
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2961
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    Cited by:

    1. Chong, Shi Kai & Bahrami, Mohsen & Chen, Hao & balcisoy, Selim & Bozkaya, Burcin & Pentland, Alex 'Sandy', 2020. "Economic outcomes predicted by diversity in cities," OSF Preprints j59u3, Center for Open Science.
    2. Lenzi, Camilla, 2016. "Co-invention networks and inventive productivity in US citiesAuthor-Name: Breschi, Stefano," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 66-75.
    3. Alejandro Llorente & Manuel Garcia-Herranz & Manuel Cebrian & Esteban Moro, 2015. "Social Media Fingerprints of Unemployment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-13, May.
    4. Elisa Heinrich Mora & Jacob J. Jackson & Cate Heine & Geoffrey B. West & Vicky Chuqiao Yang & Christopher P. Kempes, 2021. "Scaling of Urban Income Inequality in the United States," Papers 2102.13150, arXiv.org.
    5. Soumya Banerjee, 2016. "A biologically inspired model of distributed online communication supporting efficient search and diffusion of innovation," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 14(1), pages 10-22.
    6. Sing Chen Yeo & Clin K Y Lai & Jacinda Tan & Joshua J Gooley, 2021. "A targeted e-learning approach for keeping universities open during the COVID-19 pandemic while reducing student physical interactions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-17, April.
    7. Andres Gomez-Lievano & Oscar Patterson-Lomba, 2018. "Estimating the drivers of urban economic complexity and their connection to economic performance," Papers 1812.02842, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    8. Gudipudi, Ramana & Rybski, Diego & Lüdeke, Matthias K.B. & Zhou, Bin & Liu, Zhu & Kropp, Jürgen P., 2019. "The efficient, the intensive, and the productive: Insights from urban Kaya scaling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 155-162.
    9. James PL Tan, 2016. "A Generalized Population Dynamics Model of a City and an Algorithm for Engineering Regime Shifts," Papers 1612.08338, arXiv.org.
    10. Shiro Horiuchi, 2021. "Bridging of different sites by bohemians and tourists: analysis by agent-based simulation," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 567-584, November.
    11. Takahiro Yabe & Bernardo García Bulle Bueno & Xiaowen Dong & Alex Pentland & Esteban Moro, 2023. "Behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic decreased income diversity of urban encounters," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Zexun Chen & Sean Kelty & Alexandre G. Evsukoff & Brooke Foucault Welles & James Bagrow & Ronaldo Menezes & Gourab Ghoshal, 2022. "Contrasting social and non-social sources of predictability in human mobility," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    13. Hsiehchen, David & Espinoza, Magdalena & Hsieh, Antony, 2016. "Hypoallometric scaling in international collaborations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 444(C), pages 188-193.
    14. Luiz G A Alves & Renio S Mendes & Ervin K Lenzi & Haroldo V Ribeiro, 2015. "Scale-Adjusted Metrics for Predicting the Evolution of Urban Indicators and Quantifying the Performance of Cities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.
    15. Abdullah Almaatouq, 2016. "Complex Systems and a Computational Social Science Perspective on the Labor Market," Papers 1606.08562, arXiv.org.
    16. Becky PY Loo & Zhuangyuan Fan, 2023. "Social interaction in public space: Spatial edges, moveable furniture, and visual landmarks," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(9), pages 2510-2526, November.
    17. Alexander Jones Gross & Dhiraj Murthy & Lav R. Varshney, 2017. "Pace of Life in Cities and the Emergence of Town Tweeters," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, December.
    18. Yusra Ghafoor & Yi-Shin Chen & Kuan-Ta Chen, 2019. "Social Interaction Scaling for Contact Networks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-14, May.
    19. Pascoal, R. & Rocha, H., 2022. "Population density impact on COVID-19 mortality rate: A multifractal analysis using French data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 593(C).
    20. Yves Bettignies & Joao Meirelles & Gabriela Fernandez & Franziska Meinherz & Paul Hoekman & Philippe Bouillard & Aristide Athanassiadis, 2019. "The Scale-Dependent Behaviour of Cities: A Cross-Cities Multiscale Driver Analysis of Urban Energy Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-20, June.

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