6. Cognition, Complexity and the City

One of the main conclusions from the previous chapter is the need for “a cognitive approach to urban dynamics”; more specifically, the need to add to CTC an explicit consideration of the cognitive dimension of cities and urban agents’ behavior as developed in cognitive science. Several preliminary and preparatory steps toward this aim were made in previous papers (Portugali 2000, 2004, 2006a). Part II of this book that we now open attempts to integrate the previous studies and to provide a more comprehensive view on Complexity, Cognition and the City; the present chapter can be seen as an introduction to Part II. The discussion below develops by binding together the three elements of this project: cognition, the city and complexity. It starts with a concise introduction to cognition and cognitive science (Sect. 6.1). It then looks at the relations between cognition and the city (Sect. 6.2); next, at the relations between cognition and complexity (Sect. 6.3) and finally, at the implications thereof to the relations between cognition, complexity, and the city (Sect. 6.4).