Urban Dynamics And Simulation Models

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.

Recognizing that "our present processes of urban community development programs were wasteful and destructive and that our existing urban development programs were contributing to that waste and destruction",l the U. S. Congress enacted the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970 with the stated objective "the development of a national urban growth policy". The most inno 2 vative portion of this legislation was Title VII of this Act which authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to guarantee loans of up to $50 million to public or private developers of new communities. The Congress looked towards new communities as a strategy to avoid the continuing problems of increased, unplanned urban growth and the associated inefficient and wasteful use of land resources, pollution of air and water, inefficient and expensive public services and facilities and segregation of people by 3 income and race • The Office of New Communities Development (ONCD) was established in the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement a strong new communities program.

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.

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

INDEX OF PAPERS Paper 1. Evaluating Electric Vehicle Diffusion Paper 2. Modeling Housing, and Urban Infrastructures Paper 3. Modeling and Simulating Traffic Jams Paper 4. Road Infrastructure Investment Paper 5. Management of the Gravel Road Maintenance Paper 6. Critical Infrastructure Protection Paper 7. Modeling Waste from Home Devices Paper 8. Scenario Planning Workshop Paper 9. Group Model Building Paper 10. Global Container Multimodal Transport Paper 11. Gamification and Project Management Paper 12. Business Dynamics Simulator for Business Schools Paper 13. Socio-Economic Simulations of Ordinary Waste Paper 14. Perception and Utility INDEX OF MODELS FOR BEGINNERS 1. Population Growth 2. A Catastrophe Study 3. The Young Ambitious Worker 4. Development of an Epidemic 5. The Barays of Angkor 6. Building Games and Learning Labs 7. Input Output Controls 8. Sensitivity Analysis COLLECTION OF BOOKS Selected papers on System Dynamics 1.Agriculture and food production ISBN: 9781686984570 2.Business ISBN: 9781686997556 3.Ecology and the environment ISBN: 9781687000323 4.Economy: money and finances ISBN: 9781687003133 5.Energy ISBN: 9781687004932 6.Healthcare ISBN: 9781687006745 7.Housing and urban dynamics ISBN: 9781687008367 8.Supply chain and industrial dynamics ISBN: 9781687009975 9.Labor, human resources and social ISBN: 9781687015389 10.Sustainable development ISBN: 9781700341600 Detailed content in http://atc-innova.com/papers.htm ABOUT THE AUTHOR Juan Martin Garcia, expert in System Dynamics and System Thinking, Ph. D. Industrial Engineer UPC (Spain) and Postgraduate Diploma in Business Dynamics at the Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). He has been teacher of building simulation models during twenty years in several universities and now he teaches the online courses of Vensim in http://vensim.com/vensim-online-courses/

Originally published in 1990, this work analyses the use of contemporary computer models to simulate urban systems. The work deals with the two significant traditions of model-building: firstly the building of integrated models following the seminal research of Lowry first published in 1964, but with relatively simple submodels; and secondly, intensive research on particular submodels with a variety of techniques. This volume constructs a model-building exercise which integrates the two traditions: an integrated model (in a modular form with alternative components) using the most advanced submodels. The book concludes with a presentation of an example of an operational model of this type.

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.

In recent years, there has been a new understanding of how cities evolve and function, which reflects the emergent paradigm of complexity. The crux of this view is that cities are created by differentiated actors involved in individual, small-scale projects interacting in a complex way in the urban development process. This 'bottom up' approach to urban modeling not only transforms our understanding of cities, but also improves our capabilities of harnessing the urban development process. For example, we used to think that plans control urban development in an aggregate, holistic way, but what actually happens is that plans only affect differentiated actors in seeking their goals through information. In other words, plans and regulations set restrictions or incentives of individual behaviour in the urban development process through imposing rights, information, and prices, and the analysis of the effects of plans and regulations must take into account the complex urban dynamics at a disaggregate level of the urban development process. Computer simulations provide a rigorous, promising analytic tool that serves as a supplement to the traditional, mathematical approach to depicting complex urban dynamics. Based on the emergent paradigm of complexity, the book provides an innovative set of arguments about how we can gain a better understanding of how cities emerge and function through computer simulations, and how plans affect the evolution of complex urban systems in a way distinct from what we used to think they should. Empirical case studies focus on the development of a compact urban hierarchy in Taiwan, China, and the USA, but derive more generalizable principles and relationships among cities, complexity, and planning.