ABSTRACT
A next-generation of urban modeling is perhaps needed to conceptualize the dynamics of the world's megacities, which are, in many instances, growing in number, size, and influence at unprecedented rates. Understanding how and why megacities form in diverse locations, at varying times, and how they develop over diverse time-scales are important goals for science across disciplines and interests. As megacities grow and consolidate with massive tangible footprints and huge populations, so also will their influence on the world's physical, natural, social, and technical systems expand and intensify. Appreciating and understanding the future evolution of megacities is critical in explaining the futures of the world's demography, economic markets, climate variability, innovation, and in postulating about many other factors. Megacities are extraordinarily large and cumbrous phenomena. The number of state descriptors and linkages required to explain the functioning of megacities are also substantially greater, as are the potential trajectories for the system's state-space.
