This brief is a result of a January 30, 2012 program with Dr. Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute. DCFR explored the prospects for cities as growth engines and how to think about their development going forward.

1. ‘
‘ Global Themes
an issues brief series of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations
DCFR
Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations
Issue No. 5 February 13, 2012
Cities as opportunity and threat
An Interview with Geoffrey West, Professor of the Santa Fe Institute
“After all, what’s the whole point of cities? The point of cities is to bring
Introduction people together—to interact and create new things; it’s a facilitator. The
Dallas’ metropolitan GDP is infrastructure is actually a facilitator for human interactions. As a facilitator,
roughly the size of Argentina’s it would be sensitive to the dynamics of that social network.”
economy. The GDP of New York
is a few hundred billion dollars resources. This story is much dominated by economies of scale
less than Canada’s. Chicago is deeper and complex. What is the or “sublinear scaling.” In contrast,
likened to Switzerland, and so on, impact of innovation, knowledge the social networks that underlie
according to an Atlantic article. sharing, and how people behave the “superlinear scaling” of wealth
The growth of cities is somewhat to threats and opportunities? How creation, innovation, crime, and
predictable according to Professor fast is life in the city moving? pollution behave in exactly the
Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe opposite fashion: The bigger
City size and scaling the organization, the faster the
Institute. When West first analyzed
the economic productivity of pace of life. In big cities, disease
When the size of a city doubles,
American cities, he and fellow spreads more quickly, business
on average, wages, wealth,
researchers found that cities is transacted more rapidly,
the number of patents, and
become more efficient as they and people walk faster — all
the number of educational
grow. in approximately the same
and research institutions all
systematic, predictable way (the
increase by approximately the
The expansion of cities leads same ~15 percent rule).” from Seed
same degree, about 15 percent,
to expanding economies. Ever- magazine, “Urban Paradox” by Geoffrey
according to research by Dr. West
increasing urban growth is West, 2/2/2009.
and co-authors. This systematic
capturing the imaginations of
phenomenon is called “superlinear
academia and government. In
scaling.” The larger the city, the Dr. Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute
early 2009, the White House
more the average citizen owns, presented his work on cities at DCFR on
established the first Office of
produces, and consumes, in terms January 30, 2012. This interview followed
Urban Affairs. There is much his presentation. The program on cities
of goods, resources, or ideas.
that policymakers, firms and and growth is part of Series “D,” focusing
planners can learn from the laws ... “The resource and energy on development issues. His colleagues
that govern the growth of cities. networks that have evolved to Luis Bettencourt, Jose Lobo, Debbie
But the expansion of cities creates Strumsky and Dirk Helbing are also part
sustain biological organisms of the team discovering ground-breaking
a tension between growth and and ecosystems are primarily theory about cities.
4925 Greenville Ave, Suite 1025 | Dallas, Texas 75206 | 214.750.1271 | dallascfr.org

2. 2
Jennifer Warren: What has been arbitrary. If you’re planning in outrageous. After all, what’s the
the most striking revelation about a city context or want to change whole point of cities? The point of
your work that sought insight into some aspect, then you better cities is to bring people together—
the urbanization phenomenon of know about the characteristics to interact and create new things;
the 21st century? of cities, their benchmarks, if it’s a facilitator. The infrastructure
you will. There is an underlying is actually a facilitator for human
Geoffrey West: One of the most dynamic happening in cities that is interactions. As a facilitator, it
striking revelations of the research independent of what we’re doing. would be sensitive to the dynamics
is the scaling properties. Cities feel of that social network. It was a
so individual. When you observe JW: Did the doubling of a wonderful process as those ideas
cities in a physical way, each one city’s population and the 15% started to gestate.
feels different, for good or bad. productivity boost that results
Actually I was less surprised at the surprise you? This is more similar
infrastructure findings, such as gas to a return on investment than one
stations and the length of roads, might think.
because that was a biological
manifestation. I thought that GW: Yes, it did
would probably scale. As findings surprise me. I just
emerged, many socioeconomic assumed everything
quantities (innovation, wealth, was going to scale
crime, pollution) started to scale: in a manner similar
They all scaled in the same way to infrastructure. If I
across the globe. That was quite had thought about it
a striking revelation. Literally from an economics
there was something “universal” viewpoint, I would
happening. not have been
surprised. The
A realization arose. This comes existence of this
from my translation of Jane universal quality
Jacobs who wrote “The Death in the scaling was
and Life of Great American extremely salient.
Cities” in 1961. The idea is that The savings on the economies Innovation and change
cities are complex systems whose of scale on infrastructure is the
infrastructural, economic and same 15% that you gain on the Over time scales that are
social components are strongly socioeconomic fronts: That is the enormous compared with human
interrelated and therefore difficult key. social time scales, biological
to understand in isolation. Cities systems are relatively stable and
are not the buildings, the roads, The infrastructure—the buildings, sustainable, with major changes
the companies, and the rest of it. roads and power plants— taking place over thousands
They are the people. hold a key. The infrastructure or millions of years. In social
networks are, curiously, a organizations where growth is
Even if this work doesn’t succeed physical manifestation of social driven by superlinear scaling,
in providing a kind of “theory” networks. This I find unbelievable: growth is unbounded, never
of cities (though hopeful it will), a physical manifestation of reaching a stable state, and
the work in itself is sufficiently something that isn’t physical. proceeding at a rate that is faster
interesting and intriguing because When you think about these than exponential. To sustain
it reveals that things aren’t subtleties however, it is not so such growth in light of resource

3. 3
limitations requires continuous “With respect to cities, even if we want to change the future, we haven’t left ourselves
cycles of paradigm-shifting enough time. This is a real problem and the challenge. Incidentally, we should have
innovations such as the discovery been thinking about the drivers underlying cities 50 to 75 years ago.”
of iron, steam, computation, and
most recently, digital technology... and innovations was larger than about the need for retraining, to
There is, however, a serious catch: a typical productive lifespan. learn new skills and how to use
Theory dictates that the time With 19th century innovations, new technologies. We all feel
between successive innovations one often thinks of the coal era this pressure. In these equations
must get shorter and shorter. and the movements it facilitated. suggested by the research, change
So if we insist on continuous I was born in 1940, and grew has to become faster and faster. As
growth driven by wealth creation, up assuming alongside others, I said earlier, I am pessimistic that
that all the major this can be sustained.
The United Kingdom doubled real per capita GDP from innovations With respect to cities, even if we
$1,300 to $2,600 in PPP terms in 154 years, from 1700 and support want to change the future, we
to 1854. Starting 120 years later, the U.S. achieved systems were
fixed. Relatively haven’t left ourselves enough
this feat in 53 years (1820 - 1973). In first half of the time. This is a real problem and
20th century, Japan doubled its real per capita income speaking, they were
the challenge. Incidentally, we
in 33 years with a population of around 50 million. Now until twenty-odd should have been thinking about
China and India, with a combined population of more years ago with
computers. It was a the drivers underlying cities 50
2.5 billion, are doubling real per capita incomes every to 75 years ago. In the ‘60s and
12 and 16 years, respectively. This is about ten times major shift. Since
then, there has been ‘70s, there was an awareness
the speed at which the United Kingdom achieved this of these connections with the
transformation—and on around 200 times the scale. another shift into
IT (information Club of Rome ‘limits of growth’
Source: 2011 McKinsey Resource Revolution. concept and the ‘population bomb’
technology), which
is based discourse. These thinkers were
on using that computer
not only does the pace of life technology to find new and
inevitably quicken, but we must different ways to operate.
also innovate at a faster and
faster rate! (from Seed magazine, Previously the time between
“Urban Paradox” by Geoffrey innovations was thousands
West, 2/2/2009) of years, to then hundreds
of years, to perhaps a
JW: Given the speed with which shortened period of 20 to 25
innovation and change now years. Simultaneously, the
occurs, in cases one generation productive human life span
and less, is this sustainable? Will has increased dramatically.
there be a breaking point for urban Instead of working a
growth and its city dwellers? productive lifespan of 35 to
40 years, one could work
GW: There is an accelerating 50 years or more. We’ve
pace of life and quickened had these two phenomena
rate of innovation. This is an driving change, and it’s
important issue to recognize and dramatic. Life has never had
an extraordinarily interesting this dichotomy. This is going
point. Until the end of the last to produce all manner of
half of the 20th century, the time interesting social stress. We
scale between major changes hear the often-cited platitude

4. 4 February 13, 2012
totally dismissed because, rightly, The world’s new middle-class GW: That’s exactly the way one
people said that ‘we innovate.’ consumers are likely to have should be thinking and one should
Of course we do. We continue more resource-efficient levels of be building green infrastructures
to discover resources. Societies consumption than past consumers right now. I was pleased to hear
can innovate, but it has to happen with the same level of income, DCFR member-sponsor Mark
faster and faster. We haven’t thanks to technology. Cities Humphreys say that the buildings
allowed ourselves enough time to with populations of 150,000 to they now design and construct
make the social and psychological 10,000,000 in emerging markets have allowances for electric cars.
changes to adapt to an effective deliver nearly 40% of global
no-growth kind of situation. growth by 2025— with their Demography
prospective resource footprints in JW: Given that population size
the hands of city leadership. distribution is stable across
Urban infrastructure demand
The global population was forecast to countries and time, how does
will grow tremendously. demography play a role in your
stabilize at around 9 billion in the middle Current choices can make theory?
of the century, mainly due to education, a difference in resource
the economic empowerment of women demand and supply curves, GW: The world population is
and urbanization. However, the world’s for better or worse. still increasing at an exponential
population will keep growing and may hit JW: Given resource rate. While the rate of change
limitations and urban centers is declining, the rate itself is
10.1 billion by the year 2100, the United
as heavy polluters, shouldn’t still exponential (relative to the
Nations projected in a report released numbers). This is why we will
the greening and enhanced
May 2011. Two-thirds of the 9 billion of efficiency of cities be a likely have ten billion people by
2050 are expected to live in cities. priority? Governments cannot 2050. There was a nine billion
seem to implement policy figure, which I thought was
on a national level very well. totally low, and now analysts
Are cities not the perfect come back to ten billion again.
Sustainability Petri dish of sustainability? That’s a 50% increase in 40 years,
which is extraordinary. Almost
Demand from the new middle GW: There are bits and pieces all of the growth is in developing
classes will trigger a dramatic happening everywhere regarding countries— the Middle East, Latin
expansion in global urban sustainability. But remember that America, and India, for example.
infrastructure, particularly in change can take decades in cities.
developing economies. According It’s going to take a long time.
to McKinsey’s “Resource
Revolution” report, China could JW: That’s
add floor space totaling 2.5 why greener
times the entire residential and and more
commercial square footage of the efficient
city of Chicago every year. India infrastructure
could follow suit. Today’s 1.8 is a big deal
million middle class consumers because you
will grow to 4.8 billion by 2030, build a power
largely owing to growth in China plant for 30
and India. Said another way, three to 50 years.
billion middle-class consumers
will be added to the global
economy.

5. 5
Given the interconnectivity Victorian statue in a beautiful exponential rise and frequency
of the world, populations are garden. The article cited the trend with which it is happening. This
predominantly moving to cities. of people stealing statues. Many is tiny on a scale but it’s the tip
This has an enormous impact municipalities and fancy country of this iceberg. Finite resources,
on resources. As I said at the homes are replacing them with population increases and fast
beginning, this is going to have plastic facsimiles. Why are they change can lead to incredibly
a profound effect on us. I saw being stolen? Not for the art—but disruptive social forces.
an article in the London Times, for the metal to send to China for
with a picture of a 19th century building. There was a graph of this
trend’s
Global demand grows...
From 2010 to 2030
GDP 89%
Primary energy 33%
Steel 80%
Food (cereals) 27%
Water 41%
Source: McKinsey Resource Revolution
The Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations takes no institutional positions on policy issues. The views ex-
pressed and facts presented in DCFR publications are the responsibility of the author or authors.
GeoEdge
BLOG
For additional information about DCFR, please visit our website
at www.dallascfr.org.
Exploring the frontlines of
foreign affairs
Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations is a non-profit organization focused on explor-
http://geoedge.org/ ing leading-edge developments in foreign affairs. Our mission is to promote knowledge
of global affairs and a better understanding of the people and events impacting impor-
tant policy choices of the future.
For more information contact:
Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations
4925 Greenville Ave, Suite 1025 Dallas, Texas 75206
dcfr@dallascfr.org 214.750.1271