Urban Magic: Concluding Remarks
This chapter considers the prospect of a deeper understanding of social interactions in urban settings as well as their significance for the functioning and future role of cities and regions. It introduces broader sets of tools for exploring the properties of urban networks, from the lowest microscale up to the highest levels of aggregation. Graph theory, for example, offers a promising means of elucidating the urban social fabric and the interactions that define it, and more specifically the link between urban infrastructure and aspatial social networks. The chapter also compares individuals and their social interactions to an archipelago, a metaphor that offers a picture of the magic of the city. It concludes by emphasizing the interdependence between the creation of cities over physical space, on the one hand, and the urban archipelago and its internal social and economic structures, which are man-made, on the other.