Juval Portugali - Böcker

The title of this book is suggested as a notion which characterizes the nature of social relations in general and the relationships between Israelis and Palestinians in particular. According to it, Israelis and Palestinians, as societies and as individuals, are not definable independently of each other. In a kind of implicate relation, one is enfolded within the other, to the extent that Palestinian national identity can be seen as a Zionist creation. Implicate relations further implies that societies are socio-spatial entities which come into being and acquire their collective self-consciousness and self-identity through a process of spatial dialects. As illustrated throughout the discussions in the book, spatial dialects was the process through which European Jews were driven into an identity crisis once their (spatial) ghetto walls disintegrated and they thus became conscious of their nationalist-political identity. And it is this process through which, several decades later, the Arabs in Israel were forced into an identity crisis and became conscious of their Palestinian national identity once the Zionists had defined the boundaries of their future Jewish state.It is also a process through which Israelis and Palestinians became engaged in implicate relations. This is illustrated in the book by reference to historical events which have led to the emergence of Israelis and Palestinians as a socio-spatial entities, and by means of empirical analyses of Palestinian labour in Israel, Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and cognitive maps of Israelis and Palestinians. These empirical analyses are based on data collected in three large-scale field surveys among Palestinian workers and job hunters in Israel, and among Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.

This work aims to offer insights on processes associated with the construction of cognitive maps - that is to say, with the construction of internal representations of very large spatial entities such as towns, cities, neighbourhoods, landscapes, metropolitan areas, environments and the like. Because of their size, such entities can never be seen in their entirety, and consequently one constructs their internal representation by means of visual, as well as non-visual, modes of sensation and information - text, auditory, haptic and olfactory means for example - or by inference. Intersensory co-ordination and information transfer thus play a crucial role in the construction of cognitive maps. Because it involves a multiplicity of sensational and informational modes, the issue of cognitive maps does not fall into any single traditional cognitive field, but rather into, and often in between, several of them. Thus, although one is dealing here with processes associated with almost every aspect of our daily life, the subject has received relatively marginal scientific attention. The book is directed at researchers and students of cognitive mapping and environmental cognition.In particular it focuses on the cognitive processes by which one form of information, say haptic, is being transformed into another, say a visual image, and by which multiple forms of information participate in constructing cognitive maps.

Written by some of the founders of complexity theory and complexity theories of cities (CTC), this Handbook expertly guides the reader through over forty years of intertwined developments: the emergence of general theories of complex self-organized systems and the consequent emergence of CTC.Examining studies from the end of 1970 through to the current leading approach to urbanism, planning and design, the book provides an up-to-date snapshot of CTC. Insightful chapters are split into five parts covering the early foundations of the topic, the evolution of towns and cities and urban complexity, the links between complexity, languages and cities, modelling traffic and parking in cities, and urban planning and design. The Handbook on Cities and Complexity concludes with the contributors’ personal statements on their observations of COVID-19’s impact upon global cities. This book will be an invaluable resource for those researching cities and complexity and also for scholars of urban studies, planning, physics, mathematics, AI, and architecture.

In this timely book, Juval Portugali ties together ancient archaeology with the present to explore the city as a phenomenon that has been rapidly increasing in power and importance since its earliest emergence. He links the walled cities of ancient civilization with modern-day borderless cities, while providing connections between modern nationalism and postmodern urbanism.With a specific focus on two urban revolutions, the first emergence of the city 5,500 years ago and the urban revolution we are currently undergoing, Portugali analyzes the shift to a global population residing predominantly in urban environments. He examines these two urban revolutions from the perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian periphery, in terms of complex-cognitive, self-organized systems. Ultimately, the book addresses how urbanism is becoming the driving force behind human life and consciousness for the first time in history and expresses a new theory of ancient and modern urbanism oriented around socio-spatial evolution.Investigating the interrelation between complexity theory and cognitive theory – and their connection to the city – this book is an enlightening read for scholars and students of urban studies, human geography, political geography and geopolitics, and urban economics. It is also a crucial resource for those researching cities and complexity.

Written by some of the founders of complexity theory and complexity theories of cities (CTC), this Handbook expertly guides the reader through over forty years of intertwined developments: the emergence of general theories of complex self-organized systems and the consequent emergence of CTC.Examining studies from the end of 1970 through to the current leading approach to urbanism, planning and design, the book provides an up-to-date snapshot of CTC. Insightful chapters are split into five parts covering the early foundations of the topic, the evolution of towns and cities and urban complexity, the links between complexity, languages and cities, modelling traffic and parking in cities, and urban planning and design. The Handbook on Cities and Complexity concludes with the contributors’ personal statements on their observations of COVID-19’s impact upon global cities. This book will be an invaluable resource for those researching cities and complexity and also for scholars of urban studies, planning, physics, mathematics, AI, and architecture.

Providing a succinct overview of historical, present and future perspectives of cities and urbanism, this discerning book examines how the 21st century, regarded as the age of cities, is associated with the current crisis of democracy.The book explores the tension between non-democratic liberalism and non-liberal democracy and the present era of cities as complex systems, in which the characteristics and dynamics of urbanism are transforming our way of life. Against the backdrop of globalization, the Anthropocene, and Industry 4.0, each chapter analyses the challenges and crises facing modern democracies from the unique perspective of cities and complexity theory. Expert contributors analyse the interplay between complexity theory, urban planning, governance and the internet, ultimately highlighting the need to rediscover the relationship between urban beauty and democracy.Offering key insights into the complexities of urban development and the challenges that arise when democracy intersects with the needs of modern cities, this innovative book will appeal to students and scholars of urban geography, political science, public administration, and architecture. It will be an invaluable resource for those researching cities and complexity.

The book offers a novel approach to the study of the complex dynamics of cities. It is based on (1) Synergetics as a science of cooperation and selforganization, (2) information theory including semantic and pragmatic aspects, and optimization principles, (3) a theory of steady state maintenance, and of (4) phase transition, i.e. qualitative changes of structure or behavior.From this novel theoretical vantage point, the book addresses particularly three issues that stand at the core of current discourse on cities: Urban Scaling, Smart Cities and City Planning.An important consequence of “the 21st century as the age of cities”, is that the study of cities currently attracts scientists from a variety of disciplines, ranging from physics, mathematics and computer science, through urban studies, architecture, planning  and human geography, to economics, psychology, sociology, public administration and more. The book is thus likely to attract scholars, researchers andstudents of these research domains, of complexity theories of cities, as well as of general complexity theory. In addition, it is directed also to practitioners of urbanism, city planning and urban design.

The book offers a novel approach to the study of the complex dynamics of cities. It is based on (1) Synergetics as a science of cooperation and selforganization, (2) information theory including semantic and pragmatic aspects, and optimization principles, (3) a theory of steady state maintenance, and of (4) phase transition, i.e. qualitative changes of structure or behavior.From this novel theoretical vantage point, the book addresses particularly three issues that stand at the core of current discourse on cities: Urban Scaling, Smart Cities and City Planning.An important consequence of “the 21st century as the age of cities”, is that the study of cities currently attracts scientists from a variety of disciplines, ranging from physics, mathematics and computer science, through urban studies, architecture, planning  and human geography, to economics, psychology, sociology, public administration and more. The book is thus likely to attract scholars, researchers andstudents of these research domains, of complexity theories of cities, as well as of general complexity theory. In addition, it is directed also to practitioners of urbanism, city planning and urban design.

This monograph demonstrates the interplay between Shannon information and semantic information in cognition. It shows that Shannon’s information acts as driving force for the formation of semantic information; and vice versa, namely, that semantic information participates in the formation of Shannonian information. The authors show that in cognition, Shannonian and semantic information are interrelated as two aspects of a cognitive process termed as information adaptation. In the latter the mind/brain adapts to the environment by the deflating and/or inflating of the information conveyed by the environment. In the process of information adaptation, quantitative variations in Shannon’s information entail different meanings while different meanings affect the quantity of information. The book illustrates the above conceptually and mathematically by reference to three cognitive processes: pattern recognition, face learning and the recognition of a moving object.

This book, which resulted from an intensive discourse between experts from several disciplines – complexity theorists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, urban planners and urban designers, as well as a zoologist and a physiologist – addresses various issues regarding cities.

This book, which resulted from an intensive discourse between experts from several disciplines – complexity theorists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, urban planners and urban designers, as well as a zoologist and a physiologist – addresses various issues regarding cities.

This book explores the possibilities of applying the theories of complexity and self-organization developed to account for various phenomena in the natural science to artifacts traditionally the realm of humanities and social sciences. The emphasis of this volume is on the development of cities and the impact of these methods on urban simulation methods.

This book integrates the theories of complex self-organizing systems with the rich body of discourse and literature developed in what might be called "social theory of cities and urbanism". This is done in several ways: First, by an explicit comparative discussion of the two theoretical bodies in conjunction with some classical issues such as the nature of cities, the urban process, urban and regional planning, decision making, and the urban revolution (or rather revolutions). Second, by developing a new family of heuristic models and using them to study the issue of socio-cultural spatial segregation in cities. We term these models FACS models (Free Agents in a Cellular Space). Third, by developing a synergetic/pattern recognition theory of cities and of decision-making in the context of city planning.

This book explores the possibilities of applying the theories of complexity and self-organization developed to account for various phenomena in the natural science to artifacts traditionally the realm of humanities and social sciences. The emphasis of this volume is on the development of cities and the impact of these methods on urban simulation methods.

Cities first came into existence more than five thousand years ago. How to deal with these partly fascinating, partly frightening creatures of mankind, both practically and intellectually, concerns all of us and, in particular, presents areal challenge to city planners. Each historical epoch has had its own par­ ticular attitudes associated with the "Zeitgeist". Accordingly, the planning and steering of cities were based on quite different criteria. But in spite of these differences, the concept of planning and steering was, and still is, the cornerstone of our dealing with cities. Nevertheless, the planner's dilemma is becoming more and more visible: cities and megacities seem to be un­ plannable. In this book, Juval Portugali intro duces a new idea: Cities are self­ organizing systems. To substantiate his revolutionary concept, he uses several interlinked methods. On the one hand, and to my own delight, he employs in his arguments theoretical tools developed in the interdisciplinary field of synergetics. On the other hand, jointly with his co-workers, he has performed detailed model calculations on cellular nets. It has been a great pleasure and a wonderful experience for me to discuss these concepts with Juval Portugali over a number of years. I was repeatedly and deeply impressed by the way he established profound and often surprising links to other fields of science.

Complexity, Cognition and the City aims at a deeper understanding of urbanism, while invoking, on an equal footing, the contributions both the hard and soft sciences have made, and are still making, when grappling with the many issues and facets of regional planning and dynamics. In this work, the author goes beyond merely seeing the city as a self-organized, emerging pattern of some collective interaction between many stylized urban "agents" – he makes the crucial step of attributing cognition to his agents and thus raises, for the first time, the question on how to deal with a complex system composed of many interacting complex agents in clearly defined settings. Accordingly, the author eventually addresses issues of practical relevance for urban planners and decision makers.The book unfolds its message in a largely nontechnical manner, so as to provide a broad interdisciplinary readership with insights, ideas, and other stimuli to encourage further research – with the twofold aim of further pushing back the boundaries of complexity science and emphasizing the all-important interrelation of hard and soft sciences in recognizing the cognitive sciences as another necessary ingredient for meaningful urban studies.

Today, our cities are an embodiment of the complex, historical evolution of knowledge, desires and technology. Our planned and designed activities co-evolve with our aspirations, mediated by the existing technologies and social structures.  The city represents the accretion and accumulation of successive layers of collective activity, structuring and being structured by other, increasingly distant cities, reaching now right around the globe.This historical and structural development cannot therefore be understood or captured by any set of fixed quantitative relations. Structural changes imply that the patterns of growth, and their underlying reasons change over time, and therefore that any attempt to control the morphology of cities and their patterns of flow by means of planning and design, must be dynamical, based on the mechanisms that drive the changes occurring at a given moment.This carefully edited post-proceedings volume gathers a snapshot view by leading researchers in field, of current complexity theories of cities. In it, the achievements, criticisms and potentials yet to be realized are reviewed and the implications to planning and urban design are assessed.

Complexity, Cognition and the City aims at a deeper understanding of urbanism, while invoking, on an equal footing, the contributions both the hard and soft sciences have made, and are still making, when grappling with the many issues and facets of regional planning and dynamics. In this work, the author goes beyond merely seeing the city as a self-organized, emerging pattern of some collective interaction between many stylized urban "agents" – he makes the crucial step of attributing cognition to his agents and thus raises, for the first time, the question on how to deal with a complex system composed of many interacting complex agents in clearly defined settings. Accordingly, the author eventually addresses issues of practical relevance for urban planners and decision makers.The book unfolds its message in a largely nontechnical manner, so as to provide a broad interdisciplinary readership with insights, ideas, and other stimuli to encourage further research – with the twofold aim of further pushing back the boundaries of complexity science and emphasizing the all-important interrelation of hard and soft sciences in recognizing the cognitive sciences as another necessary ingredient for meaningful urban studies.

Today, our cities are an embodiment of the complex, historical evolution of knowledge, desires and technology. Our planned and designed activities co-evolve with our aspirations, mediated by the existing technologies and social structures.  The city represents the accretion and accumulation of successive layers of collective activity, structuring and being structured by other, increasingly distant cities, reaching now right around the globe.This historical and structural development cannot therefore be understood or captured by any set of fixed quantitative relations. Structural changes imply that the patterns of growth, and their underlying reasons change over time, and therefore that any attempt to control the morphology of cities and their patterns of flow by means of planning and design, must be dynamical, based on the mechanisms that drive the changes occurring at a given moment.This carefully edited post-proceedings volume gathers a snapshot view by leading researchers in field, of current complexity theories of cities. In it, the achievements, criticisms and potentials yet to be realized are reviewed and the implications to planning and urban design are assessed.

The title of the book -- Implicate Relations -- is suggested as a notion which characterizes the nature of social relations in general and the relations between Israelis and Palestinians in particular. According to it, Israelis and Palestinians, as societies and as individuals, are not definable independently of each other. In a kind of implicate relation one is enfolded within the other to the extent that Palestinian national identity can be seen as a Zionist creation. Implicate relations further implies that societies are socio-spatial entities which come into being and acquire their collective self-consciousness and self-identity through a process of spatial dialectics. As illustrated throughout the discussions in the book, spatial dialectics was the process through which European Jews were driven into an identity crisis once their (spatial) Ghetto walls disintegrated and they thus became conscious of their nationalist-political identity.And it is this process through which, several decades later, the Arabs in Israel were forced into an identity crisis and became conscious of their Palestinian national identity once the Zionists had defined the boundaries of their future Jewish state. It is also the process through which Israelis and Palestinians became engaged in implicate relations. This is illustrated in the book by reference to historical events which have led to the emergence of Israelis and Palestinians as socio-spatial entities, and by means of empirical analyses of Palestinian labour in Israel, Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and cognititive maps of Israelis and Palestinians. These empirical analyses are based on data collected in three large-scale field surveys among Palestinian workers and job hunters in Israel, and among Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.