Transient dynamics and scaling phenomena in urban growth

Abstract

Urban centers present all over the world striking similarities which translate into universal laws describing their growth and morphology. In this paper, we study a simple two-dimensional cellular automata model containing what we identify as essential ingredients in the demographic change. The slow addition of population to an initially empty area (mimicking migration) added with a reaction diffusion process (representing reorganization of the population) allow us to recover many real data and provide us with a better understanding of the main processes forming and shaping the modern metropolis.