CASA Working Paper 22

Cellular Models of Urban Systems

Cellular automaton (CA) based models are increasingly used to investigate cities and urban systems. We discuss difficulties with this representation of human systems, and suggest that many modifications to simple CA introduced in modelling cities are responses to these problems.

We propose a two-pronged approach to research. First, for operational model-building many variations on the CA theme are required and should be welcomed; and second theoretically motivated variations of the CA formalism are required so that the possible effects on model dynamic behaviour may be more systematically explored.

This working paper is available as a PDF. The file size is 161KB.

Authors: David O'Sullivan, Paul Torrens

Publication Date: 1/6/2000

Download working paper No. 22.