Urban complexity is a hard-to-grasp concept. This paper firstly aims at investigating this issue through
the prism of scale-hierarchic distributions: fractals, power laws, Zipf’s laws and Pareto distributions.
Authors notably emphasize the mathematical proximity between these distributions. Building on the
convergence of Prigogine’s dissipative structure theory, industrial ecology and Bejan’s constructal law,
authors then stress the crucial role that power law distributed complex urban structures have to play to
make cities energy efficient and resilient.