3 comments

  • krautsauer37 minutes ago
    This is not quite a spherical cow and there is something to be learned here, but really, I&#x27;d like to see this with<p>- non-square-grid cities with highways, public transport, …<p>- realistic synthetic populations doing non-random destination selection (nobody randomly goes to a supermarket at the other end of a city, after all)<p>- actual traffic simulation with jams (or at least using real traffic data)<p>and then evaluate both the energy use and travel times. That being said, doing this kind of thing, e.g. with ActivitySim, even for one real city, is quite a bit of work.
  • irickt2 hours ago
    Here&#x27;s a preprint from 2025: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;2507.00100v1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;2507.00100v1</a>
    • irickt2 hours ago
      And an explainer&#x2F;simulator here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vis.csh.ac.at&#x2F;cities-morphology&#x2F;#&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vis.csh.ac.at&#x2F;cities-morphology&#x2F;#&#x2F;</a>
  • readthenotes13 hours ago
    Without getting behind the paywall, the abstract says that how far you have to travel determines how far you have to travel??
    • welcome_dragon3 hours ago
      I was going to dismiss this and then I read the whole abstract and that is, pretty much what it says. Oh but I guess it also says they came up with a model for how far apart things are determining how far you have to travel to get there
      • whartung44 minutes ago
        I forget that actual reference.<p>But there was an article or map or something talking about the placement of towns, I think, back east (or the south, or Virginia).<p>Simply, the towns were placed within a days travel of each other. And the communities they served were, effectively, about a 1&#x2F;3rd days travel in radius. That&#x27;s how far folks would go to get into town, and being a day apart facilitated long range travel instead of camping in the wilderness.<p>The towns were basically small towns designed to serve those local communities. Cities formed on the intersections of such roads to support more trade and traffic.<p>I don&#x27;t recall if it talked about towns along rivers where transit might be faster.<p>But it was an interesting article with a map of actual towns.
      • wpollock54 minutes ago
        I think the best shape for a city is a Mobius strip: go anywhere without turns, so no traffic lights needed.
    • Muromec3 hours ago
      Every 60 seconds a minute passes