Modeling City Suburb Interactions In The Urban Dynamics Model

This monograph presents urban simulation methods that help in better understanding urban dynamics. Over historical times, cities have progressively absorbed a larger part of human population and will concentrate three quarters of humankind before the end of the century. This “urban transition” that has totally transformed the way we inhabit the planet is globally understood in its socio-economic rationales but is less frequently questioned as a spatio-temporal process. However, the cities, because they are intrinsically linked in a game of competition for resources and development, self organize in “systems of cities” where their future becomes more and more interdependent. The high frequency and intensity of interactions between cities explain that urban systems all over the world exhibit large similarities in their hierarchical and functional structure and rather regular dynamics. They are complex systems whose emergence, structure and further evolution are widely governed by the multiple kinds of interaction that link the various actors and institutions investing in cities their efforts, capital, knowledge and intelligence. Simulation models that reconstruct this dynamics may help in better understanding it and exploring future plausible evolutions of urban systems. This would provide better insight about how societies can manage the ecological transition at local, regional and global scales. The author has developed a series of instruments that greatly improve the techniques of validation for such models of social sciences that can be submitted to many applications in a variety of geographical situations. Examples are given for several BRICS countries, Europe and United States. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in the field of urban dynamics, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.

Jay W. Forrester addresses the interactions of an urban area in a model, which is described in Urban Dynamics. His model implements interactions between three major factors: industry, employment, and housing. The model indicates that a decrease in unoccupied land is the decisive element in the decline of a city. The model was developed in the late 1960s and has held a controversial reputation ever since. Since occupied land is a decisive factor in the model, it is an interesting tool to study green space development and its effects on an urban system. Studying Forrester's model opens the discussion of whether or not the model is still applicable today. The project consisted of three parts. First, Forrester's model, originally in Dynamo, was verified using iThink Analyst. Verification determined that the model runs as Forrester intended. Second, how Forrester's theory led the city to stop growing with the leading indicator being the formation of new enterprise and the key casual factor being land was confirmed. Finally, modifications were made to the land parameters and the effects were assessed.

The field of Urban Dynamics itself is based on the systems engineering concept that all complex systems (and cities and urban areas are no exception) are comprised of independent and often smaller, more understandable sub-components with relationships to one another. This allows for the system as a whole to be modeled, using knowledge of the individual subsystems and their behaviors. In this instance, urban dynamics allows for the modeling and understanding of land use, the attractiveness of space to residents, and how the ageing and obsolescence of buildings affects planning and economic development, as well as population movements, with the urban landscape. The book adopts a trans-disciplinary approach that looks at the way residential mobility, commuting patterns, and travel behavior affect the urban form. It addresses a series of issues dealing with the accessibility of urban amenities, quality of life, and assessment of landscape residential choices, as well as measurement of external factors in the urban environment and their impact on property values.

This book contains the contributions presented at the international workshop "The Dynamics of Complex Urban Systems: an interdisciplinary approach" held in Ascona, Switzerland in November 2004. Experts from several disciplines outline a conceptual framework for modeling and forecasting the dynamics of both growth-limited cities and megacities. Coverage reflects the various interdependencies between structural and social development.

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.