Cities are time accelerator machines

…So it's hardly news that the pace of life has been accelerating, but what is surprising is that it has a universal character that can be quantified and verified by analyzing data. Furthermore, it can be understood scientifically using the mathematics of social networks by relating it to the positive feedback mechanisms that enhance creativity and innovation, and which are the source of the many benefits and costs of social interaction and urbanization.

In this sense cities are time accelerator machines. The contraction of socioeconomic time is one of the most remarkable and far-reaching features of modern existence.

Scale: The universal laws of life, growth, and death in organisms, cities, and companies by Geoffrey West, 2017. Page 328.