The scaling of human interactions with city size

translation

原文

The size of cities is known to play a fundamental role in social and economic life. Yet, its relation to the structure of the underlying network of human interactions has not been investigated empirically in detail. In this paper, we map society-wide communication networks to the urban areas of two European countries. We show that both the total number of contacts and the total communication activity grow superlinearly with city population size, according to well-defined scaling relations and resulting from a multiplicative increase that affects most citizens. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the probability that an individual’s contacts are also connected with each other remains largely unaffected. These empirical results predict a systematic and scale-invariant acceleration of interaction-based spreading phenomena as cities get bigger, which is numerically confirmed by applying epidemiological models to the studied networks. Our findings should provide a microscopic basis towards understanding the superlinear increase of different socioeconomic quantities with city size, that applies to almost all urban systems and includes, for instance, the creation of new inventions or the prevalence of certain contagious diseases.

摘自: Schläpfer M, Bettencourt L M A, Grauwin S, et al. The scaling of human interactions with city size[J]. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2014, 11(98): 20130789.

关键词

翻译

The size of cities is known to play a fundamental role in social and economic life.

众所周知, 城市规模在社会经济生活中发挥着基础性的作用.

Yet, its relation to the structure of the underlying network of human interactions has not been investigated empirically in detail.

然而, 城市规模与人类交互的基础网络结构的关系还没有在细节上进行实验性的研究.

In this paper, we map society-wide communication networks to the urban areas of two European countries.

在这篇论文中, 我们绘制了两个欧洲国家的城市地区的全社会交流网络.

We show that both the total number of contacts and the total communication activity grow superlinearly with city population size, according to well-defined scaling relations and resulting from a multiplicative increase that affects most citizens.

根据良好定义的比例关系和由此导致的影响大多数市民倍增关系, 我们展示了总的接触数和总的交流活动相比城市人口规模超线性地增长现象.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, the probability that an individual’s contacts are also connected with each
other remains largely unaffected.

但是可能令人惊讶的是, 个体的所有接触之间的关联的概率却保持几乎不受影响.

These empirical results predict a systematic and scale-invariant acceleration of interaction-based spreading phenomena as cities get bigger, which is numerically confirmed by applying epidemiological models to the studied networks.

这些实验结果表明, 随着城市规模的增大, 基于交互的扩散现象出现系统尺度不变地加速, 把流行病学模型应用到我们研究的网络上也从数值上证实了这一点.

Our findings should provide a microscopic basis towards understanding the superlinear increase of different socioeconomic quantities with city size, that applies to almost all urban systems and includes, for instance, the creation of new inventions or the prevalence of certain contagious diseases.

我们的发现提供了一个微观的基础来理解不同的社会经济量都随着城市规模超线性增长现象, 这可以应用到大多数的城市体系, 也包括,例如,新发明的创造或者传染性疾病的传播.