Ancient cities such as Rome and the Mayan capital of Tenochtitlan were just physically different from cities of today.
New research shows many surprising similarities between today's cities and the cities of the past, especially in governance and urban problems. A study by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder also revealed human settlements function in much the same way as modern cities.
Equally important, ancient cities also experienced a predictable mathematical phenomenon called "urban scaling"
Urban scaling refers to the mathematical regularity and predictability of a city's growth. Previous research has shown that as the population of modern cities grows, so do their efficiencies and productivity.
A city's population will eventually surpass its urban infrastructure while its production of goods and services outpaces its population. The new research said these patterns exhibit a surprising degree of mathematical regularity and predictability, or a phenomenon called "urban scaling."
Research by SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt and Scott Ortman, now an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at CU Boulder, prompted a research project on the effects of city size through history. Bettencourt is also lead investigator of SFI's Cities, Scaling, and Sustainability research program.
"Our results suggest that the general ingredients of productivity and population density in human societies run much deeper and have everything to do with the challenges and opportunities of organizing human social networks," said Bettencourt as quoted by Science Codex.
To reach their findings, a team of researchers looked at archaeological data from the Basin of Mexico, which is now Mexico City, and surrounding regions. They analyzed the dimensions of hundreds of ancient temples, and thousands of houses to figure out population size and density throughout history, according to Science.
The team also estimated the construction rate of the structures and how often they were used. The findings indicated the larger the ancient settlement, the more productive it was.