PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Peering into the future: How cities grow

2013-11-20
(Press-News.org) Contact information: Nik Papageorgiou
n.papageorgiou@epfl.ch
41-789-400-620
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Peering into the future: How cities grow Migration patterns into and out of cities are the result of millions of individual decisions, which in turn are affected by thousands of factors like economics, location, politics, security, aesthetics, sentiments and others. However, it is becoming more and more critical for urban planners to be able to predict the rate of growth of a given city in order to better address future issues that arise from increasing urbanization. Publishing in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, researchers from EPFL have discovered a law that could prove fundamental in forecasting the growth of cities.

Cities are often regarded as living organisms, bustling with life and activity. This metaphorical image has a real basis, as migration in and out of cities is a constant, dynamic force. But as cities boom across the world, it is becoming necessary to determine patterns in urban migration. This would allow the prediction of a city's growth in the future, resulting in better planning for administration, design, logistics, and finance. The problem is that human migration over time and space is motivated by a vast range of individual decisions, giving rise to enormously complex data that are not easy to analyze.

An EPFL research team led by Alberto Hernando has discovered what may be universal laws underlying the seemingly random complexity of city movement. The team analyzed data records from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE), covering a period of 111 years (1900 – 2011) and including a total of 45 million people across 8100 municipalities in Spain. The team was able to view population flow in terms of Brownian motion – random movements of particles inside a medium, like dust floating in air. The exhaustive data available were critical for this innovative approach to work, and they allowed the researchers to uncover laws underlying city growth.

First, the way a city will grow in the future depends heavily on how it grew in the past. Although this seems intuitive, it is not always true since city growth depends on a multitude of factors. By using their model, the team found that it is possible to use past data to predict a city's rate of growth, as long as that city has at least 10,000 inhabitants. They also found that this strong relationship between past and future lasts for approximately 15 years, during which it runs at a constant rate. What this means is that predictions of city growth require at least 15 years' worth of population data for best accuracy.

Second, a city's growth is strongly influenced by how neighboring cities grow. This is especially true when neighboring cities are within 80 Km; as the distance increases, the influence of neighboring cities weakens. This means that predictions of city growth would be challenging for cities like Las Vegas or Perth in Australia, which are large but relatively remote. The relationship between city growth and distance from neighbors means that geography is an important factor when forecasting the future urban sprawl of a particular city.

Following the model's success, Hernando is now interested in extending it to isolate the factors that influence the movement of people. "People move for natural (e.g. disasters, climate change) or non-natural (e.g. volatile economic or social policies, wars) reasons", he says. "Being able to isolate and fit them into a model can help simulate and predict the impact that political or financial decisions can have in a region." In addition, the model can be further applied to forecast the growth of commercial companies by looking at the fluctuations of their value over defined periods of time. "Our long-term goal is to develop a simulation tool including all demographic, social, and economic forces in scene, where virtual copies of cities grow and develop in hypothetical situations, mimicking the response of their real-world counterparts."

### END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

New modelling technique could bypass the need for engineering prototypes

2013-11-20
New modelling technique could bypass the need for engineering prototypes A new modelling technique has been developed that could eliminate the need to build costly prototypes, which are used to test engineering structures such as aeroplanes. The study, ...

Oral drug may improve survival in men with metastatic prostate cancer

2013-11-20
Oral drug may improve survival in men with metastatic prostate cancer DURHAM, N.C. – An investigational prostate cancer treatment slows the disease's progression and may increase survival, especially among men whose cancer has spread to the bones, ...

New case studies link smoking synthetic marijuana with stroke in healthy, young adults

2013-11-20
New case studies link smoking synthetic marijuana with stroke in healthy, young adults University of South Florida neurologists report both patients experienced ischemic strokes soon after smoking the street drug spice Tampa, FL (Nov. 19, ...

Sex of speaker affects listener language processing

2013-11-20
Sex of speaker affects listener language processing LAWRENCE — Whether we process language we hear without regard to anything about the speaker is a longstanding scientific debate. But it wasn't until University of Kansas scientists set up an experiment showing ...

HIV virus spread and evolution studied through computer modeling

2013-11-20
HIV virus spread and evolution studied through computer modeling LOS ALAMOS, N.M., November 19, 2013—Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory are investigating the complex relationships between the spread of the HIV virus in a population (epidemiology) ...

Blacks have less access to cancer specialists, treatment

2013-11-20
Blacks have less access to cancer specialists, treatment UC San Diego study suggests racial inequality leads to higher mortality Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say metastatic colorectal cancer patients of African-American ...

What water looks like to DNA

2013-11-20
What water looks like to DNA New computational method described in the Journal of Chemical Physics allows researchers to predict how biological molecules interact with water WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 19, 2013 -- A team of biochemists and mathematicians have ...

Stanford study could lead to paradigm shift in organic solar cell research

2013-11-20
Stanford study could lead to paradigm shift in organic solar cell research Organic solar cells have long been touted as lightweight, low-cost alternatives to rigid solar panels made of silicon. Dramatic improvements in the efficiency of organic photovoltaics have ...

New study finds no benefit to selecting dose of blood thinner based on patients' genetic makeup

2013-11-20
New study finds no benefit to selecting dose of blood thinner based on patients' genetic makeup Largest randomized, multi-center controlled trial of gene-based strategy for warfarin dosing also found better outcome for African ...

Edoxaban effective in preventing stroke, reducing bleeding and cardiovascular death in patients with atrial fibrillation

2013-11-20
Edoxaban effective in preventing stroke, reducing bleeding and cardiovascular death in patients with atrial fibrillation Boston, MA – According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 800,000 ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Patients who had cataracts removed or their eyesight corrected with a new type of lens have good vision over all distances without spectacles

AI can spot which patients need treatment to prevent vision loss in young adults

Half of people stop taking popular weight-loss drug within a year, national study finds

Links between diabetes and depression are similar across Europe, study of over-50s in 18 countries finds

Smoking increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of its characteristics

Scientists trace origins of now extinct plant population from volcanically active Nishinoshima

AI algorithm based on routine mammogram + age can predict women’s major cardiovascular disease risk

New hurdle seen to prostate screening: primary-care docs

MSU researchers explore how virtual sports aid mental health

Working together, cells extend their senses

Cheese fungi help unlock secrets of evolution

Researchers find brain region that fuels compulsive drinking

Mental health effects of exposure to firearm violence persist long after direct exposure

Research identifies immune response that controls Oropouche infection and prevents neurological damage

University of Cincinnati, Kent State University awarded $3M by NSF to share research resources

Ancient DNA reveals deeply complex Mastodon family and repeated migrations driven by climate change

Measuring the quantum W state

Researchers find a way to use antibodies to direct T cells to kill Cytomegalovirus-infected cells

Engineers create mini microscope for real-time brain imaging

Funding for training and research in biological complexity

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: September 12, 2025

ISSCR statement on the scientific and therapeutic value of human fetal tissue research

Novel PET tracer detects synaptic changes in spinal cord and brain after spinal cord injury

Wiley advances Knowitall Solutions with new trendfinder application for user-friendly chemometric analysis and additional enhancements to analytical workflows

Benchmark study tracks trends in dog behavior

OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Google vary widely in identifying hate speech

Research spotlight: Study identifies a surprising new treatment target for chronic limb threatening ischemia

Childhood loneliness and cognitive decline and dementia risk in middle-aged and older adults

Parental diseases of despair and suicidal events in their children

Acupuncture for chronic low back pain in older adults

[Press-News.org] Peering into the future: How cities grow