Johnson, S., 2001, Emergence, Penguin, London
- Author : Johnson, S.
- Year : 2001
- Title English : Emergence
- Publisher : Penguin
- Publisher's Location : London
- ISBN : 0-140-287-752
- Pages : 288
- Edition : pbk
- Comments : p. 39 'The city is complex because it overwhelms, yes, but also because it has a coherent personality, a personality that self-organises out of millions of individual decisions. A global order built out of local interactions.' p.108 “There are manifest purposes to a city – reasons for being that its citizens are usually aware of: they come for the protection of the walled city, or the open trade of the marketplace. But cities have a latent purpose as well: to function as information storage and retrieval devices. Cities were creating user-friendly interfaces thousands of years before anyone ever dreamed of digital computers. Cobblers gather near cobblers, and button makers near other button makers. Ideas and goods flow readily within these clusters, leading to productive cross-pollination, ensuring that good ideas don’t die in rural isolation.”