Is there a universal law that can accurately predict the seemingly random growth of a city? Patterns in urban migration are influenced by politics, security, location and even aesthetics.
By analysing data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute spanning more than 100 years, researchers found the future growth of a city is partly determined by the way that it grew in the past and partly by the way that its neighbouring cities have expanded.
Researchers are hopeful that the predictive model can be used to isolate the factors that influence the movement of people, and even be used to forecast the growth of commercial companies, by looking at the fluctuations of their value over time.
Read more at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne