Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies

by Geoffrey West

Consequently, the exponent controlling social interactions, and therefore all socioeconomic metrics—the universal 15 percent rule for how the good, the bad, and the ugly scale with city size—is bigger than 1 (1.15) to the same degree that the exponent controlling infrastructure and flows of energy and resources is less than 1 (0.85),