title: Self-Organisation in Spatial Systems-From Fractal Chaos to Regular Patterns and Vice Versa.
abstract: This study offers a new perspective on the evolutionary patterns of cities or urban agglomerations. Such developments can range from chaotic to fully ordered. We demonstrate that in a dynamic space of interactive human behaviour cities produce a wealth of gravitational attractors whose size and shape depend on the resistance of space emerging inter alia from transport friction costs. This finding offers original insights into the complex evolution of spatial systems and appears to be consistent with the principles of central place theory known from the spatial sciences and geography. Our approach is dynamic in nature and forms a generalisation of hierarchical principles in geographic space.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physics, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Umultowska 85, 61-614 Poznan, Poland.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Banaszak
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physics, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Umultowska 85, 61-614 Poznan, Poland; Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Dziegielowa 27, 61-680 Poznan, Poland.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dziecielski
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Dziegielowa 27, 61-680 Poznan, Poland; Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU University, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nijkamp
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Dziegielowa 27, 61-680 Poznan, Poland.
authors.forename: Waldemar
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ratajczak
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D008962:Models, Theoretical