Complexity,emergence and cellular urban models: lessons learned from applying SLEUTH to two Portuguese metropolitan areas

We explore the simulation of urban growth using complex systems theory and cellular automata (CA). The SLEUTH urban CA model was applied to two different metropolitan areas in Portugal, with the purposes of allowing a comparative analysis, of using the past to understand the dynamics of the regions under study, and of learning how to adapt the model to local characteristics in the simulation of future scenarios. Analysis of the two case studies show the importance of SLEUTH's self-modification rules in creating emergent urban forms. This behavior can help build an understanding of urban social systems through this class of CA.     

Paths of an Evolving City: Alternatives and Relevance in Local Policy

This paper builds on some previous results concerning: (1) a view of the industrial district as a learning region, and (2) a typology of features of local development and industrial policies. The aim here is to apply these results to a 'non-district' case study, that is the understanding of the inner logic of the economy and the framing of the local economic policy in an Italian dynamic city (Florence, and its urban system). The interest of such case is two-fold. Firstly, we see how the conceptual framework developed for the analysis of industrial districts can be applied, at least partially, to different types of local systems, and in particular to the important case of complex and dynamic urban systems. Secondly, the complexity itself makes easier, or not avoidable, the consideration of a trade-off in the inputs of local policy's relevance.     

Gibrat Revisited: An Urban Growth Model Incorporating Spatial Interaction and Innovation Cycles. 再评吉尔布瑞特：顾及空间相互作用和创新周期的城市增长模型

We designed a geographical model for simulating the distribution of urban growth in systems of cities. The model incorporates the hierarchical and spatial diffusion of innovation cycles through gravitational interactions within a set of cities. Using theoretical simulations, we demonstrate that this model is able to reproduce the observed properties of urban systems for the log‐normal distribution of city sizes as well as the observed distribution of growth rates. Our experimentation was performed on a large harmonized historical database that includes a few hundred French urban agglomerations between 1831 and 1999 (Pumain‐INED database). Both spatial interaction and innovation cycles are necessary ingredients to explain the evolution of urban hierarchies. We suggest that Gibrat's generic stochastic growth model based on independent entities should be replaced by a more relevant model of spatially and temporally interdependent geographical entities.     

Staying on Top: Why is Munich so Resilient and Successful?

This article seeks to explain why Munich, Germany's most economically successful city in recent decades, has proved so resilient despite various challenges and shocks. It begins by discussing different theoretical understandings of resilience and our methodological approach which builds on complex adaptive systems and evolutionary economic geography perspectives. Using a blend of historical analysis and in-depth investigation of the dynamics of one of the city's most innovative clusters, we argue that Munich's resilience essentially stems from the complex interplay of Germany's distinctive political history and federal system, which has promoted multi-level governance and a strong urban system, longstanding city regional leadership and entrepreneurialism, Munich's inherent assets and diverse economy and the combined strength of its many knowledge institutions, innovation system and networks. The evidence suggests that historic, structural and locational factors and agglomeration effects largely explain Munich's rise to prominence but that sustained urban and regional leadership and effective governance and policy especially in the technological, scientific and educational spheres coupled with intelligent urban planning have played an increasingly important role in sustaining its competitiveness.     

A Theory‐Based Cellular Automata for the Simulation of Land‐Use Change. 基于理论细胞自动机的土地利用变化模拟

This study proposes a theory‐based cellular automata (CA) in which CA rules are constructed on the basis of a theory of urban land‐use change and other local conditions. Rent gap theory that describes urban redevelopment and exogenous conditions that reflect urban development are embedded into a CA to simulate changes of land use. The theoretical framework provides a strong conceptual background for the CA simulation. A case study demonstrates the flexibility of the integrated framework for simulating land‐use changes in complex settings. This research aims to help decision‐makers formulate appropriate development plans.     

城市系统演化的复杂性研究

城市演化是由复杂多样的动力和主体推动的,受全球、国家和地方尺度的多重影响,表现出复杂的演化规律和特征。笔者认为城市系统演化模式与过程的研究需要发展一个基于复杂性理论的跨学科的分析框架。本文首先提出一个城市系统演化的概念模型,然后运用层次理论分析了城市系统演化的复杂相互作用,论述了城市系统演化的组成异质性、时空复杂性、决策复杂性等复杂性表征,最后讨论了城市系统演化的各种复杂规律。     

Multiagent Systems and the Dynamics of a Settlement System

In order to simulate the evolution of a system of settlements with a dynamic model, many processes must be integrated: the spatial aggregation of population, the complexification of urban activities, and the increasing hierarchical differentiation of settlements. The model must also simulate the progressive structuration of the settlement system through a growing variety and enlarged range of interactions between its elements. “Multiagent systems” provides a flexible modeling method for dealing with the multiple spatial interactions of cooperation and competition and relations that generate and regulate the evolution of a settlement system. Its principles are described and applied to building an evolutionary model, including a simulation tool. The model combines economic and spatial rules to produce birth, growth, decline, and functional diversification of the towns. The “urban transition” from an agrarian settlement system toward a hierarchical system of trade- and manufacturing-oriented towns and cities can be simulated.     

细胞自动机及在南京城市演化预测中的应用

细胞自动机(Cellular Automata)是一种具有时空计算特征的动力学模型,其最主要的特点是复杂的系统可以由一些很简单的局部规则来产生,特别适合城市等空间复杂系统的时空动态模拟研究。本文利用地理信息系统(GIS)和细胞自动机的有机集成而构筑的CA-Urban模型模拟南京市的土地利用的动态演化过程。对南京三个开发区的发展以及南京能否跨江发展等存在争议的问题作了预测和评估。通过设置不同的转换规则、参数,从一个侧面为我们展示了城市系统的宏观演化的可能模式,为城市规划等提供了辅助决策。最后提出了模型的缺点及其展望。     

Space-Time Synergetics in Innovation Diffusion: A Nested Network Simulation Approach

The relevance of evolutionary dynamics theories for investigating the development of sociotechnical systems has recently been recognized. In this framework the logistic growth model is considered by many scientists as an extremely appropriate framework that is able to interpret the dynamics of innovation diffusion. Starting from recent results in the literature on technological dynamics, the present paper focuses on backgrounds leading to different shapes of the conventional logistic function. By embedding these motives in the socio-attitudinal context of the system at hand, the present paper tries to give a new interpretation for the rapid/slow “take off” and dynamics of a given innovation in a spatial setting. In particular, a nested logistic dynamic model is developed here, with particular emphasis on the dynamic growth rate of the logistic function expressing—by means of an accessibility cost function—the preference intensity concerning a given innovation for a certain region/country. Finally, various simulation experiments are carried out for the case of both a two-dimensional and a four-dimensional network. The possibility of both stable and unstable diffusion patterns, depending on the parameter values in the nested “attitudinal” dynamic function, is also investigated.     

Individual Accessibility Revisited: Implications for Geographical Analysis in the Twenty‐first Century

Analytical methods for evaluating accessibility have been based on a spatial logic through which the impedance of distance shapes mobility and urban form through processes of locational and travel decision making. These methods are not suitable for understanding individual experiences because of recent changes in the processes underlying contemporary urbanism and the increasing importance of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in people's daily lives. In this paper we argue that analysis of individual accessibility can no longer ignore the complexities and opportunities brought forth by these changes. Further, we argue that the effect of distance on the spatial structure of contemporary cities and human spatial behavior has become much more complicated than what has been conceived in conventional urban models and concepts of accessibility. We suggest that the methods and measures formulated around the mid‐twentieth century are becoming increasingly inadequate for grappling with the complex relationships among urban form, mobility, and individual accessibility. We consider some new possibilities for modeling individual accessibility and their implications for geographical analysis in the twenty‐first century.     

Cooperation and Collective Action in the Cultural Evolution of Complex Societies

Investigations of the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation and collective action provide productive venues for theorizing social complexity, yet this multidisciplinary scholarship contains analytical and epistemological tensions that require reconciliation. We propose a course for integration of this diverse literature to investigate the emergence and developmental trajectories of complex societies. Greater attention to collective action problems, cultural mechanisms that promote cooperation, differentiation of human interests, and multiscalar research designs provide firmer conceptual underpinnings for a theoretically grounded cultural evolutionary framework. The case of agricultural intensification in pre-Hispanic highland Mexico is used to illustrate major points of the paper.     

The invasion complex: the abject other and spaces of violence

This article examines how the image of the refugee has been defined through the fear of the other, and how the mechanisms of detention have transformed the conditions of belonging. I examine the contemporary geopolitical forces propelling the rise of a new authoritarianism, growing border anxieties and hostility towards refugees, and argue that these emerging shifts provoke an urgent need for a new conceptual framework to understand the dynamics of contemporary global flows and concepts of belonging. I introduce what I call the ‘invasion complex’, a new conceptual hybrid that draws upon elements of psychoanalytic theory and complex systems theory, and Giorgio Agamben's analysis of sovereignty and ‘the camp’, to explain heightened border anxieties and the legitimization of violence towards the Other. I consider the value, applications and limitations of Agamben's analysis, and contend that both the state‐centric moral debate on the refugee crisis, and Agamben's method of privileging political agency in terms of sovereign power, tend to discount the role of complexity. Drawing on the Australian political and public discourse on refugees, and the 2001 Tampa crisis, I argue that the hostile reactions can be traced to a complex interplay between old phobias and new fantasies. I conclude by urging the need to move beyond nation state centric critiques of racism, and propose the development of a new paradigm — a potential politics that recognizes the complex dynamics of global flows, and which opens the way for a discourse of hope based on the rights of the human being, rather than the citizen.     

Rescaling regions in the state: The New Regionalism in California

A “new civic regionalism” – based on participatory, inclusive and partnership models of governance – has recently been rolled out in California to tackle the challenges of urban growth, planning and economic development across the State's diverse metropolitan and rural regions. Backed by non-profits and private foundations, California's New Regionalism has been packaged as a flexible and responsive grassroots governance initiative, which is designed to circumnavigate State and local government. Its proponents have been influenced by New Regionalist ideas and practices circulating nationally and internationally. Despite this, our explanation for the rise of the New Regionalism in California is not grounded in these wider theoretical and policy developments; nor do we see it as the outcome of a “new politics of scale” framed around the region. Instead, California's newest regionalism is part of a much longer-standing social movement spearheaded by large-scale business interests and directed at reorganizing local and State government powers particularly in urban regions. This regional reform movement has sought to rationalize land use and environmental planning, coordinate infrastructure, and make government more fiscally efficient and responsive to growth. Over the longer term, its efforts have been undermined by the fiscal fallout of the property tax revolt, Proposition 13. Our analysis calls into question some of the claims in the literature on state rescaling and suggests the value of collapsing the conceptual distinction made between new spaces of political regionalism and regional economic spaces.     

Relational concepts of space and place: Issues for planning theory and practice

This paper seeks to conceptualize and explore the changing relationships between planning action and practice and the dynamics of place. It argues that planning practice is grappling with new treatments of place, based on dynamic, relational constructs, rather than the Euclidean, deterministic, and one‐dimensional treatments inherited from the ‘scientific’ approaches of the 1960s and early 1970s. But such emerging planning practices remain poorly served by planning theory which has so far failed to produce sufficiently robust and sophisticated conceptual treatments of place in today's globalizing’ world. In this paper we attempt to draw on a wide range of recent advances in social theory to begin constructing such a treatment. The paper has four parts. First, we criticize the legacy of object‐oriented, Euclidean concepts of planning theory and practice, and their reliance on ‘containered’ views of space and time. Second, we construct a relational understanding of time, space and cities by drawing together four strands of recent social theory. These are: relational theories of urban time‐space, dynamic conceptualizations of ‘multiplex’ places and cities, the ‘new’ urban and regional socio‐economics, and emerging theories of social agency and institutional ordering. In the third section, we apply such perspectives to three worlds of planning practice: land use regulation, policy frameworks and development plans, and the development of ‘customized spaces’ in urban ‘regeneration’. Finally, by way of conclusion, we suggest some pointers for practising planning in a relational way.     

基于后人类思想的国际城市研究：理论溯源与概念辨析

进入二十一世纪以来,以赛博格城市、混合城市、城市政治生态学、集合城市主义为代表的后人类城市研究思想成为揭示当代城市中人类与非人类复杂交织关系的前沿性理论视角。本文在深入探讨上述概念的理论渊源、主要思想观点及其应用进展的基础上,指出后人类城市思想在我国城市研究中的可能方法论意义,即城市分析不能将人类与非人类绝对割裂地看待,而需要将城市中的主体或客体重新定义为人类与非人类的“混杂体”,整合以往分散在自然、工程、社科与人文等不同领域中的观察与分析,拓展人们对城市过程的认知,开创更多的城市研究可能性。     

Evolutionary Perspectives on Rural Australia

An enduring concern within Australian rural geography has been to understand the nature and implications of change. Much of the intellectual effort has been focused on interpreting how rural economies, populations, social institutions, cultures, and land uses have been transformed through processes operating across a range of spatial and temporal scales. This paper offers a critical appraisal of recent rural research in Australia and how this body of work has attempted to make sense of change. It argues that despite an ongoing focus on the nature of change, it is often reduced to a relatively simple historical narrative. We suggest that some of the emerging ideas in ‘evolutionary economic geography’ might offer an alternative means of conceptualising the trajectories of rural economies, institutions, and communities. The paper outlines the contours of evolutionary economic geography and the ways in which some of its key conceptual foundations might offer a means of understanding not only rural change, but also continuity.     

大数据时代的精细化城市模拟:方法、数据和案例

以地块作为基本空间单元并以城市活动主体作为模拟对象的精细化模拟是未来城市模型研究的重要方向,大数据(big data)时代的到来也为其提供了重要发展机遇。本文重点对精细化城市模型的主流建模方法进行了介绍,包括元胞自动机(Cellular Automata,CA)、基于主体建模(Agent-based Modelling,ABM)和传统的微观模拟(Microsimulation,MSM)这三种自下而上的微观模拟方法。之后结合精细化城市模型的高标准数据需求问题,对国际上通行的用于精细化模拟数据合成(population synthesis)的方法进行了综述,并给出笔者近年来在精细化城市模拟方面的多项实践案例,最后提出了以GIS为平台,结合CA/ABM/MSM方法,构建我国精细化城市模型的框架体系和关键技术,以期支持我国大城市地区空间政策的制定和评估。     

A Dynamic Household Model for the Housing Market of Amsterdam

This paper addresses the issue of incorporating household dynamics into operational dynamic urban models. Dynamic model approaches that can be used to model urban change are introduced and discussed. We conclude that these different approaches are best combined in an accounting framework. An example of an accounting framework for a dynamic model of Amsterdam is presented. The household submodel is discussed in detail and some preliminary results are given.     

城市生态管治:城市化压力的政策响应

缺乏制衡的城市化行为对城市生态系统造成的压力不断增大,成为城市可持续发展的瓶颈。城市生态管治是将"管治"和"生态城市"的理念引入到城市研究中,运用P-S-R概念模型研究城市生态系统,通过分析城市化的生态压力,以及由此引起的生态系统的非健康状态,进而采取城市生态管治的政策响应,以形成反馈机制,缓解压力,使得城市生态系统产生新的输出,即良好健康状态的城市生态系统。城市生态管治政策响应体系包括政策一体化(核心),支撑能力建设和协调发展机制。