Urban Simulation Modeling

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.

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.

This book is thematically positioned at the intersections of Urban Design, Architecture, Civil Engineering and Computer Science, and it has the goal to provide specialists coming from respective fields a multi-angle overview of state-of-the-art work currently being carried out. It addresses both newcomers who wish to obtain more knowledge about this growing area of interest, as well as established researchers and practitioners who want to keep up to date. In terms of organization, the volume starts out with chapters looking at the domain at a wide-angle and then moves focus towards technical viewpoints and approaches.

This book, Urban Simulation Modeling: An Introduction and Experimental Applications in the Czech Republic, provides readers with a review of basic urban simulation modeling methodology and discusses the constraints and potentials of its application in the Czech Republic. The first part of the book elaborates on eleven distinct urban simulation models with the aim of illustrating the basic theoretical and methodological approaches to urban simulation modeling. The analysis of the models focuses on the way the models represent essential urban entities and processes with the primary objective to make the assumptions on which the models are based more explicit. Special emphasis is placed on the behavioral content of the models. The first part concludes with a discussion of the potential use of the models for policy analysis. In the second part of the book, several experimental simulation models illustrate the potentials and limits of the micro-simulation modeling of the most essential urban processes and provide methodological and technical guidance for their development and implementation in the Czech Republic.

by Professor Poul Harremoes Environmental engineering has been a discipline dominated by empirical approaches to engineering. Historically speaking, the development of urban drainage structures was very successful on the basis of pure empiricism. Just think of the impressive structures built by the Romans long before the discipline of hydraulics came into being. The fact is that the Romans did not know much about the theories of hydraulics, which were discovered as late as the mid-1800s. However, with the Renaissance came a new era. Astronomy (Galileos) and basic physics (Newton) started the scientific revolution and in the mid-1800s Navier and Stokes developed the application of Newtons laws to hydrodynamics, and later, St. Venant the first basic physics description of the motion of water in open channels. The combination of basic physical understanding of the phenomena involved in the flow of water in pipes and the experience gained by "trial and error", the engineering approach to urban drainage improved the design and performance of the engineering drainage infrastructure. However, due to the mathematical complications of the basic equations, solutions were available only to quite simple cases of practical significance until the introduction of new principles of calculation made possible by computers and their ability to crunch numbers. Now even intricate hydraulic phenomena can be simulated with a reasonable degree of confidence that the simulations are in agreement with performance in practice, if the models are adequately calibrated with sample performance data.

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.

​​This book discusses urban microclimate and heat-related risks in urban areas, brought on by the combination of global climate change effects and local modification of climate determined by extensive urbanization such as the ‘Urban heat island’ phenomenon. This matter is relevant to almost all urbanized areas in the world, where the increase of urban population and air temperature is expected to endanger both the overall health of the population and the energy supply for the functioning of urban systems. The book details the inter-relationship between urban morphology, microclimate and building energy performance and presents a multidisciplinary approach that brings together Urban Climatology, Engineering and Architectural knowledge to support the development of reliable models and tools for research and practice. This book is a useful tool for architects and building energy modelers, urban planners and geographers who need a practical guide to realize basic urban microclimate simulation for use in both academic research and planning practice.

Geosimulation is hailed as ‘the next big thing’ in geographic modelling for urban studies. This book presents readers with an overview of this new and innovative field by introducing the spatial modelling environment and describing the latest research and development using cellular automata and multi-agent systems. Extensive case studies and working code is available from an associated website which demonstrate the technicalities of geosimulation, and provide readers with the tools to carry out their own modelling and testing. The first book to treat urban geosimulation explicitly, integrating socio-economic and environmental modelling approaches Provides the reader with a sound theoretical base in the science of geosimulation as well as applied material on the construction of geosimulation models Cross-references to an author-maintained associated website with downloadable working code for readers to apply the models presented in the book Visit the Author's Website for further information on Geosimulation, Geographic Automata Systems and Geographic Automata Software http://www.geosimulationbook.com

The computer game SimCity has had its day, but professional urban simulation programmes are becoming more and more advanced. The development of new towns can be charted with the aid of these programmes. The International New Town Institute (INTI) in Almere is conducting research on this. The results are presented in the book Model Town.