A running theme in Johnson's writing is complexity. At first, he uses the term to describe the ant colony. Despite the enormous number of moving parts (ants), the colony works collectively as if it were a single entity. He points out that the mother ant is queen in name only, in that she does not dictate the tasks or activities of the individual worker ants. Each ant seems to carry out its component part in creating and maintaining an intelligent, complex network.
Johnson switches topics without transition and seemingly at random to the city of Manchester. This enclave had no central organization despite its location and importance during the Industrial Revolution. The bustling town filled with exorbitant amounts of trade, vice, and people was under no specific leadership, guidance, or planning. Yet the city seemed to organize itself in a logical, if not elitist manner. Johnson takes the time to discuss how complexity comes in two forms. Firstly, there is the complexity that confuses or confounds. In other words, a system is complex if its user has to put some effort into understanding it. The second type of of complexity is simply a characteristic of the system itself. The way a system, like a city or anthill, organizes itself with order and design.
It's interesting to point out that Johnson is seemingly interested in disorganized complexity, the kind without a grand designer, and yet he praises it for its orderedness and methodology. While this appears to be a contradiction (how can there be order when no one is ordering?), his point I believe is that individuals acting on similar principles or towards a similar purpose, can, without the help of a planner, can make individual decisions that interrelate to realize the shared goal.
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