City infrastructure scales sublinearly with population: for example, the number of petrol stations per capita decreases as a city grows, and this economy of scale holds to the same degree everywhere in the world (Europe, Japan, China, Colombia), and applies to all infrastructure such as length of roads and electrical lines.

factualpending

Speaker

Geoffrey West

Evidence Quote

Less petrol stations per capita the bigger you are... It scales in the same way everywhere

Source

Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporationsTED
Created: 7/4/2026, 9:38:42 PM

My Notes

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