Showing papers by "Elena G. Irwin published in 2009"

The Economics of Urban-Rural Space

Abstract: The emergence of urban-rural space, as evidenced by the expansion of low-density exurban areas and growth of amenity-based rural areas, is characterized by the merging of a rural landscape form with urban economic function. Changing economic conditions, including waning transportation and communication costs, technological change and economic restructuring, rising real incomes, and changing tastes for natural amenities, have led to this new form of urban-rural interdependence. We review the recent research on the causes and consequences of this growth at regional and metropolitan scales, discuss advances in empirical and theoretical economic models of urban land-use patterns at spatially disaggregate scales, and highlight research on environmental impacts and the efficacy of growth controls and land conservation programs that seek to manage this growth. The paper concludes with future research questions and needs. These include spatially disaggregate and accurate data, improved causal inference and struct...

Towards a comprehensive framework for modeling urban spatial dynamics

Abstract: The increasing availability of spatial micro data offers new potential for understanding the micro foundations of urban spatial dynamics. However, because urban systems are complex, induction alone is insufficient. Nonlinearities and path dependence imply that qualitatively new dynamics can emerge due to stochastic shocks or threshold effects. Given the policy needs for managing urban growth and decline and the growing desire for sustainable urban forms, models must be able not only to explain empirical regularities, but also characterize system-level dynamics and assess the plausible range of outcomes under alternative scenarios. Towards this end, we discuss a comprehensive modeling approach that is comprised of bottom-up and top-down models in which both inductive and deductive approaches are used to describe and explain urban spatial dynamics. We propose that this comprehensive modeling approach consists of three iterative tasks: (1) identify empirical regularities in the spatial pattern dynamics of key meso and macro variables; (2) explain these regularities with process-based micro models that link individual behavior to the emergence of meso and macro dynamics; and (3) determine the systems dynamical equations that characterize the relationships between micro processes and meso and macro pattern dynamics. Along the way, we also clarify types of complexity (input and output) and discuss dimensions of complexity (spatial, temporal, and behavioral). While no one to date has achieved this kind of comprehensive modeling, meaningful progress has been made in characterizing and explaining urban spatial dynamics. We highlight examples of this work from the recent literature and conclude with a discussion of key challenges.

The Interaction of Segregation and Suburbanization in an Agent-Based Model of Residential Location

Abstract: We present a model of the interaction of segregation and suburbanization in determining residential location. The model incorporates differential income between two classes of agents, a simplified market mechanism for the purchase of housing, and a simple geographic structure of one central city and four symmetrically arranged suburbs. Agents derive utility from neighborhood racial composition, the size of their lot, private amenities that are specific to neighborhoods, and public amenities that stretch across municipalities. We find that the public-amenities term leads to a positive-feedback loop in which migration to suburbs increases the public amenities in those municipalities while lowering amenities in the central city, thus sparking further migration. When the minority agents are uniformly less affluent than the majority agents, this dynamic produces discontinuity in segregation as measured by centralization. Such discontinuities are typical of first-order phase transitions. When minority and major...