The connected city: how networks are shaping the modern metropolis

摘要

The social sciences and policy disciplines, and along with them econophysics and certain engineering disciplines, are converging on a common language for understanding the modern metropolis. A central component of this language is graph and network theory. Graphs and networks are used almost interchangeably as the mathematical objects that allow us to describe connections between distinct identifiable entities. The entities could be individuals, firms, organizations of all kinds, governments, and aggregations of such entities. The aggregations may be spatial, thus defining neighborhoods, or functional and behavioral, defining social groupings of all sorts. The advent of social media has added to the types of connections that are possible, so people may be Facebook friends, Twitter followers, Linked-In connections, etc.