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Ancient and Modern People Followed Same Mathematical Rule To Build Cities
An anonymous reader writes with news of a study that shows similarities in how cities are built throughout time. "A study of archeological data from ancient Mexican settlements reveals remarkable similarities between pre-Colombian cities and modern ones, lending support to the idea that urban spaces are shaped by universal social behaviors. Sure, each city has its own local quirks, architecture, language and cuisine. But recently, some theoretical scientists have started to find there are universal laws that shape all urban spaces. And a new study suggests the same mathematical rules might apply to ancient settlements, too. Using archaeological data from the ruins of Tenochtitlan and thousands of other sites around it in Mexico, researchers found that private houses and public monuments were built in predictable ways."
that's all I need to know.
And then there's Boston.
Profit = Artificial property price escalation
So we go from "most all humans" to universal. That seems so inexact as to be inexcusable. But, let's also consider those very early cities where they were all built together and you entered and exited by crossing the roofs of the other dwellings. Did those also fit this same ancient mathematical model?
I think they might be talking about logic.
People need roads. People put businesses next to well traveled roads. People who work for businesses build houses near their work. Cities form.
Who'da thought?
You mean... it's a theory that they are scientists?
Wait, you mean they were using the same equation? Did they discover it on stone tablets chiseled by ALIENS?
How about, ancient and modern cities follow same mathematical pattern? Because that could actually be true. Both ancient and modern cities weren't built from the same city planning manual, because most cities (even modern ones) aren't planned at all, except haphazardly and as they go.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
After reading this does not seem all that much different that whats in the Timeless Way of Building books. It is well worth reading. However the mathamatical models would be good.
Obviously Atlantis seeded both Europe and America. That's soooo much more likely than common social behaviors leading to common social structures.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
What they are actually saying is that ancient and modenr chities can *be described* by the same formula.
Referring to the article: When a modern city doubles its population, it grows 83% in size (ther than 100%); this seems to hold true for ancient cities.
When a moden city doubles its population, it's per-capita GDP (and wages) increase 15%. Using the number of monuments per-capita as a guide, the researchers found this also correlated with ancient cities.
It's an interesting article (I'd like more details) but, per Slashdot norms, a lousy title.
Build on a flood plain, make millions of dollars today, and let the tax payers pick up the bill after a catastrophic 100-year flood years later. Rinse, rebuild and repeat.
for NYC that means that ten million people commute into the same few square miles and all the subways run through manhattan. it results in daily delays and the need for a car for weekend driving unless you want to spend over an hour riding through manhattan for no reason
and the real estate barons kill any attempt to create smaller business districts outside of manhattan and to build a train route that does not touch manhattan
I bet if they further studied the ruins of Tenochtitlan (and other cities), they'd find that denizens held universally predictable opinions such as "Man, Tenochtitlan drivers are the worst!" and "If you don't like the weather in Tenochtitlan, wait 15 minutes."
Spreadsheet or cellphone?
This story has been on the normal news outlets for at least three days now. How nice slashdot finally decided to pick it up.
Prison?
One other AC posted this, but it will probably stay buried at zero.
If you're interested in why some spaces feel nice to you and others don't, there's a series of books you want to read, by "Christopher Alexander"
The first one is "The Timeless Way of Building". The next is "A Pattern Language"
This guy was writing about the human factors in architecture -- why certain spaces make all people feel good, and how that developed over human history, and how it's largely been lost in modern architecture.
His next book, "A Pattern Language", enumerates 253 patterns his team rediscovered that help resolve social problems in architectural spaces.
The problem he noticed is that people could understand if they felt good in a space or not, but it was difficult to predict ahead of time if a building would have this quality or not. And that's obviously a huge problem if you want to build things that people love, because buildings are expensive and stay around a long time. Just cloning old buildings that people like doesn't quite do it either - because people didn't really understand what made those spaces great.
This series of books is what the Gang of Four looked at, and one of them said "hey, this applies to building software also - when the problem looks like this, there's a pattern that can be implemented many different ways to address that problem".
Thus, the design patterns movement in software was born.
If you're at all interested in houses, cities, planning, design, etc, I really recommend the books.
However, read them before you buy/build your next house -- not right after you just moved. You'll start to find explanatinos about where you currently live that explain why you don't use or don't enjoy certain things, and you'll be frustrated and want to start changing things :)
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
So they had a Starbucks on every corner, too.
What I'd like to know is if the larger households of the presumably wealthy in the ancient cities were close to the center of the city where most of the commercial, cultural and juridical life took place or if they had huge villas well outside the city from where they "commuted" to work most every day?
At least, when it comes to Tokyo.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Grid pattern: yes. Relative position to the nearest mormon temple. Laughably false.
http://www.exploreutah.com/Get...
*mic drop*
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Original statement: "Most towns in Utah ... [use addresses as a] ... position in yards relative to the nearest Mormon temple."
One county follows a system of naming streets relative to one temple. Not the nearest, and not most cities. Your own link betrays your lack of reading comprehension. At the time it was founded, it probably made sense for the people to number their streets off the most culturally significant feature of town. Every city in Utah outside Salt Lake County names their streets relative to their own Main Street (which rarely features a temple) which can run East-West or North-South, and Center Street (which, obviously, rune in the other direction).
Next these scientists will release a paper on the predictability of settlements, most of which, surprise surprise, are built near natural resources like rivers. Who knew!
Orgrimmar and Stormwind?
The line spacing in TFA makes my eyes bleed!
Now why do I come to think "We built this city... on rock and roll"?
The ones claiming rock, metal and other incarnations are dead - pfft!
Just like... Mexico City!
I am Mexican, living in Mexico City. My wife is an Argentinian, from a mid-sized province capital. She often finds it laughable how this city lacks any logic. Of course, until it becomes clear that most quirks come from agricultural, old villages that got slurped into the Blob. Then its shape is explainable... Not that it makes much sense, of course.
On ant and termite colonies? I wonder if it extends to all life forms on the planet?
Unless BH is an AI, I'd assume that he's comprised of a multitude of cells.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This is a purley political religious dogmatic article on trying to show that God is in charge and he directs humans in a certain way. Hocus Pocus crap. In the top of the article it says that they probably collected patents, really? patents?. It also says the person who didnt believe the rubbish they were spewing went to the institute and was a convert? really? he became a convert so then he believed all your rubbish?. Geez give me a break, this is not even close to scientific. This is more fallacy than science.
Given that Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah and that Salt Lake County is rather large. It's possible that 'most towns' are located in Salt Lake County.
It's also quite possible that many other town in Utah follow the same format as Salt Lake City.
Can you cite a reference for your claim of how streets are named in Utah?
Let's not draw any conclusions first now......