How do we develop a science of cities? Can we think of cities as organisms? What is urban scaling and how does it help us understand city systems across nations? We explore these and other questions with Luis Bettencourt in the first conversation of our series on building a science of cities.

In this discussion, we explore the Indian urban system, particularly how various properties of cities like crime, infrastructure, and innovation change with city size, and what this tells us about the evolution of the urban fabric of the country. 

In this discussion, we explore the design of cities in North Africa, and how the features of Islamic law and local traditions have led to the emergence of strikingly fractal patterns, which are in contrast to Western cities.