Big business and small business, the global and the local, the rich and the poor—these polarities often inhabit compartmentalized geographies within the modern global city. This compartmentalization proves to be problematic since the lack of a localized diversity of socioeconomic actors is a critical point of vulnerability in the context of urban resilience. The question is, what role does the relationship between the built world and human socioeconomic agency play in the context of this issue? The objective of this dissertation is to document, analyze, and understand: (1) at the district scale, how architectural / urban characteristics, typologies, and configurations have historically influenced the developmental trajectory and composition of the city’s socioeconomic fabric, and in turn how socioeconomic structures have historically influenced the architectural / urban characteristics, typologies, and configurations observed in the city; (2) at the building scale, how the internal physical / spatial characteristics and configurations of buildings have historically influenced the developmental trajectory and composition of the socioeconomic fabric, and how socioeconomic actors in turn have historically altered and influenced the internal physical / spatial characteristics and configurations of buildings over time; (3) the commonalities, patterns, and processes that can be discerned via the historic study of these narratives of physical and socioeconomic change; and (4) how these commonalities can in turn inform future architectural and urban projects in their capacity to support localized diversities of socioeconomic actors. In seeking to answer these questions, this dissertation endeavors to understand, more broadly: (1) the historic nature of the relationship between the physical and the socioeconomic fabric of the city; and (2) how future alterations to the physical fabric of the city can be informed so as to positively impact a locality’s ability to attract and maintain a diversity of socioeconomic actors over an extended period of time. These broader objectives are pursued with the supposition that they have the capacity to significantly impact the ideological conception, as well as practical regulation, planning, and administration of global cities.

abstract: Urban scaling analysis has introduced a new scientific paradigm to the study of cities. With it, the notions of <italic>size</italic>, <italic>heterogeneity</italic> and <italic>structure</italic> have taken a leading role. These notions are assumed to be behind the causes for why cities differ from one another, sometimes wildly. However, the mechanisms by which size, heterogeneity and structure shape the general statistical patterns that describe urban economic output are still unclear. Given the rapid rate of urbanization around the globe, we need precise and formal mathematical understandings of these matters. In this context, I perform in this dissertation probabilistic, distributional and computational explorations of (i) how the broadness, or narrowness, of the distribution of individual productivities within cities determines what and how we measure urban systemic output, (ii) how urban scaling may be expressed as a statistical statement when urban metrics display strong stochasticity, (iii) how the processes of aggregation constrain the variability of total urban output, and (iv) how the structure of urban skills diversification within cities induces a multiplicative process in the production of urban output. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Applied Mathematics for the Life and Social Sciences 2014

The present paper examines possible changes in temporal urban diversity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Stockholm and Uppsala metropolitan areas. In addition to general changes in diversity, potential differences of diversity levels at locations with varying socioeconomic characteristics are examined. The diversity levels are calculated based on mobile phone data and defined by the inflow and distribution of individuals to locations. The time frame involves eight study dates and extends from January to April 2020. The paper reaches the following conclusions. (1) Diversity levels display a general decline during the pandemic, with one exception - Easter Holidays. (2) Individuals residing in areas with high proportions of highly educated individuals or visible minorities experience a decrease in diversity whereas the opposite is true for areas with high proportions of low-income earners or senior citizens (3) The increase in diversity in the two last mentioned areas, which are located in remote parts of the metropolitan area, coincide with decreasing levels of diversity in the central parts of the metropolitan area. It is possible that changes in diversity levels in these areas can be explained by changes in general behavioural trends, e.g. incentives to avoid crowded city center areas.