Intermittency model for urban development

The evolution of a stochastic reaction-diffusion model whose dynamics leads to the development of a strongly inhomogeneous, spatiotemporally intermittent density field is analytically and numerically studied. The processes underlying the model can be identified with those that govern urban development. The results for the reaction-diffusion model are thus compared with data obtained from real human demography. Statistical properties of urban distributions---in particular, the universal power law observed in the population frequency of cities---are successfully reproduced by the model.