According to New Scientist, two physicists from France and the U.S. have developed a simple mathematical model which shows how urban road networks evolve. Their model shows that urban street patterns and leaf pattern formation follow similar rules. The researchers validated their theoretical model by analyzing real road networks in about 300 cities. They’ve looked at young cities, such as Brasilia, and older ones, such as Cairo or London. Their conclusion is that the evolution of urban road networks follows ‘a simple universal mechanism despite significant cultural and historical differences.’ But read more…

Links: ZDNet, Primidi