City as Complex Adaptive System (CAS)
Channel: IMMdesignlab
Date: 18/10/2019

Cities are growing fast, and faster are growing the numbers of urban inhabitants. At present, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities and it is estimated that this ratio will increase to 70 percent by 2050. It means that if they are not managed now, the urban-related issues we are facing today will be taken to much more intensity tomorrow and even more severe environmental risks and socio-economic conflicts are yet to arise.
Currently, about 80 percent of the global primary energy is being consumed in urban areas, cities are being guilty of emitting more than 60 percent of the total world’s greenhouse gases, and the list of social issues in urban arrangements are endless. On the other hand, cities are the economic engine of the world, and by being on average responsible for more than 75 percent of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) their further expansion is an inevitable perspective.
In this situation, and as sustainability becomes the main development framework for all parts of economic communities, adopting innovative approaches towards development in the built environment is becoming urgent.
This video introduces, the city considered as a dynamic Complex Adaptive System (CAS), comprised of the integration of an enormous number of interrelated components, which through their inner arrangement and the architecture of their ligands, provide a certain physical and provisional arrangement of the CAS.