kathleen wrote:

>although you  might be able to predict the "en masse" average
>behavior better in the unconstrained case you would be less likely to
>predict the specific behavior.

>These webs or networks
>are seen as mutually constraining and enabling.

It seems to me that everything in this discussion turns around exactly how
one defines a 'constraint' and what one hopes to 'predict'.

Which is more constrained: a subway station in which there are a limited
number of platforms and tunnels interconnecting them with an entrance - ie
spatially relatively simple and with a few 'origins' and 'destinations' for
movement, or a city grid with many hundreds of buildings each a potential
origin or desination?

What do we hope to predict: the behaviour of an individual in such a system
or the long term average flow densities (or whatever) of the whole
population?

If we consider the attractors or generators of movement as 'choices' rather
than 'constraints' then the fewer the easier it is to predict the
individual's behaviour (the same kind of thing can be said for the
complexity of the spatial network). However in the city grid which has been
subject to evolution of land use locations and densities etc. the
population averages may still be highly predictable in spite of the
vanishingly small possibility of predicting any individual's behaviour.

Alan

________________________________________________
Alan Penn
Director, VR Centre for the Built Environment
The Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning
1-19 Torrington Place  (Room 335)
University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
tel. (+44) (0)171 387 7050 ext 5919   fax. (+44) (0)171 916 1887
mobile. (+44) (0)411 696875
email. [log in to unmask]
www.   http://www.vr.ucl.ac.uk/
________________________________________________




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