It is not wrong. It gives an approximation of reality. With 2 or 3 differential equation, you can model the growth of a city and the densification of its cente

It is not wrong. It gives an approximation of reality. With 2 or 3 differential equation, you can model the growth of a city and the densification of its center in a kinda realistic way. It gives you a baseline. In such a model, population is a number. One way to look at it is to say that it has the assumption that everybody is equal, but another way to look at it is to say that we are averaging the population differences. Such a model would fail at modelling some behaviors like the densification of some suburban island, would be totally oblivious to the creation of ghettos. If the goal is to make a game, that can be enough. In some type of scientific or economic simulations they could be enough as well. > The problem isn't with simplicity for simplicty's sake. My concern is that we're making public policy decisions based on models that are plain wrong Models are, fortunately, not the only way to establish a fact-based policy. And far more complex models do exist taking more parameters into account.