Vinicius M. Netto

Social Interaction and the City: The Effect of Space on the Reduction of Entropy

How can individual acts amount to coherent systems of interaction? In this paper, we attempt to answer this key question by suggesting that there is a place for cities in the way we coordinate seemingly chaotic decisions. We look into the elementary processes of social interaction exploring a particular concept, “social entropy,” or how social systems deal with uncertainty and unpredictability in the transition from individual actions to systems of interaction. Examining possibilities that (i) actions rely on informational differences latent in their environments and that (ii) the city itself is an information environment to actions, we propose that (iii) space becomes a form of creating differences in the probabilities of interaction. We investigate this process through simulations of distinct material scenarios, to find that space is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the reduction of entropy. Finally, we suggest that states and fluctuations of entropy are a vital part of social reproduction and reveal a deep connection between social, informational, and spatial systems.

‘The social fabric of cities’: a tripartite approach to cities as systems of interaction

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the main ideas of an integrated approach intended to address three vital yet relatively little explored dimensions in the social and material shaping of cities. First, it looks into ‘cities as systems of encounters’ in time and space – or how we find ourselves co-present with those like us or those different from us in public and private places. Second, it introduces a view to ‘cities as systems of communication’ – or how cities become contexts that help us to produce linguistic exchanges and create massive action systems from seemingly trivial situations. Third, it looks into ‘cities as systems of material interaction’ – or why we shape and fold space into urban space in order to express interactions in complex conditions of interdependence. Finally, the paper discusses substantive and epistemological issues regarding the improbable connections between the elusiveness of actions and the perennial tangibility of their spatialities.