---
id: media/the-new-science-of-cities
about:
  label: The New Science of Cities
  description: >-
    Michael Batty's 2013 argument that cities are flows and networks rather than
    fixed artefacts, with the models that follow from treating them that way.
  tags:
    - cities
    - networks
    - flows
    - simulation
    - complexity
  depiction: cover.jpg
book:
  authors:
    - Michael Batty
  publisher: MIT Press
  year: 2013
  isbn: '9780262019521'
  url: 'https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20228583W'
domains:
  - places
  - mobility
  - people
relations:
  - predicate: made_by
    target: people/michael-batty
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: The New Science of Cities - Michael Batty - Google Books
      url: 'https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9780262534567'
    - title: 'Open Library: The New Science of Cities'
      url: 'https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20228583W'
  created: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
[Batty](/people/michael-batty/) builds the case from complexity theory, urban economics and transport theory. The book works through city size, internal structure, transport routes and location. It then presents models in order of growing elaboration: simple random processes first, land-use and transport models last. Land-use and transport models estimate where people live and work and how they travel between the two. The closing chapters turn to design and decision models for cities that do not yet exist, and treat urban design as something a group of people does together.

Most urban simulation rests on this theory. It covers which quantities a model should carry, which interactions matter, and why a model of a city has to represent its movements and connections.

Cover via Open Library.