Hierarchy and co-evolution processes in urban systems

Abstract: The concept of hierarchy in complex systems is tightly linked to co-evolutionary processes. We propose here to explore it in the case of the co-evolution between transportation networks and territories. More precisely, we extend a co-evolution model for systems of cities and infrastructure networks, and systematically study its behavior following specific hierarchy indicators we introduce. We show that population hierarchy and network hierarchy are tightly linked, but that a broad range of regimes can exist. Model exploration furthermore yields non-trivial stylized facts which can be taken into account for territorial planning on such long time scales with co-evolutionary processes.