LASIG and street networks evolution in the Scientific American

Emanuele Strano, a doctoral candidate at LASIG, authored a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports to examine how a group of Italian villages evolved into suburbs outside Milan today. Such a study may eventually help urban planners optimize future developments. The magazine " Scientific American " devoted a popularization article to this study. The world's cities are absorbing one million additional people every week - and by 2030, they could consume an extra 1.5 million square kilometers of land. What would be the best ways for those cities to grow? The present study takes a step toward that essential understanding. Strano and colleagues - computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists and urban scholars - teamed up to provide the first quantitative analysis of how unplanned street networks evolve over time. They studied the growth of Groane, a large urban area located north of Milan.