Urbanization, economic growth and sustainability

Historically, the organization of societies in dense settlements is closely correlated with the rise in incomes and human well-being. Analogies for the ways that dense human settlements lead to processes of wealth generation abound. Braudel (1982) discusses towns as electric transformers that “increase tension, accelerate the rhythm of exchange and constantly recharge human life” (p. 497). Cities have also been described as ‘engines’ of economic growth (Lucas, 1988). More recently, cities have drawn the analogy of stars-the changing characteristics of urban agglomeration as their size increases is paralleled to the functioning of stars “which burn faster and brighter (superlinearly) with increasing mass. [.. . ] although the form of cities may resemble the vasculature of [.. . ] biological organisms, their primary function is as openended social reactors” (Bettencourt, 2013, p. 1441). Notwithstanding all analogies, the concentration of human capital, large-scale physical infrastructure and public and market institutions in cities enable increases in innovation, economic activity and efficiencies from scale (Seto et al., 2010; Puga, 2010).