A landmark result in social science: even when everyone is happy to live in a mixed neighborhood, a slight preference for similar neighbors tips a whole city into segregation.
Schelling SegregationLive
emergent segregation from mild bias
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Each agent is happy if at least this fraction of its neighbors share its color; unhappy agents move to a random empty cell. Even a mild preference for similar neighbors drives sharp, global segregation — Schelling's famous result.
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How it works
Each agent checks the fraction of neighbors sharing its color. If that fraction falls below its tolerance threshold, it relocates to a random empty cell. Thomas Schelling showed that thresholds as low as one-third still drive the system to near-total segregation — emergent macro-behavior no individual intended.
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