Urban Allometry During Steady States and Phase Transitions

This chapter opens Part III (“Implications”) by examining the issue of urban allometry in light of the various facets of Synergetic Cities developed in the first two parts of our book. We review the discourse on urban allometry—the basic propositions as well as the theoretical and empirical reservations that focus mainly on the problematics of the (big) data. We then demonstrate that even if the data were perfect, scaling estimations would still be subject to variations due to the very dynamics of cities as complex systems. Namely, due to the fact that the “classical” scaling law, that stands at the center of urban allometry, is typical of the steady-state periods of cities, while the strongly fluctuating phase transition periods of cities, are typified by other scaling relationships.