Fascinating talk from Geoffrey West - I read the article in NYT a few months ago but I’m a visual learner so I actually feel like I get this talk!

• every week 1 million people are being added to cities until 2050 
• “Cities are the problems and cities are the solution” 
• quantitative metabolic rate to stay alive for all species lies at the same sub-linear slope  = 3/4 < 1 
• other stuff that falls on same sub-linear slope: petro-stations in cities
• but these things fall at super-linear slope: wages, crime, flu, patents, wealth, police, GDP
• 15% savings on infrastructure the bigger the city
• the super-linear growth of things that make a city is a universal phenomenon - the 15% rule is universal -
• some cities experience super exponential growth but the catch is that there is collapse eventually
• but to avoid collapse a major innovation has to take place, but you have to innovate faster and faster than before each phase
• here’s the thing - companies are dominated by economies of scale and grow at sub-linear rate, not super-linear rate - they all die like humans

slavin:

There were three talks I saw at TED that I can’t quite shake out of my brain. Geoffrey West’s is now online, and I can’t overstate how interesting and important I find his work. To be clear, if you haven’t watched it, take 18 minutes and watch it now.

There was an article about the research about six months ago, but seeing Dr. West present it himself, even with the 18-minute constraints of TED (as if the time was precious, instead of the ideas) headlines the humanity and decency at the center of his research. 

(also he had the coolest bag of anyone there)