title: On the Morphology of a Growing City: A Heuristic Experiment Merging Static Economics with Dynamic Geography.
abstract: In this paper, we aim at exploring how individual location decisions affect the shape of a growing city and, more precisely, how they may add up to a configuration that diverges from equilibrium configurations formulated ex-ante. To do so, we provide a two-sector city model merging a static equilibrium analysis with agent-based simulations. Results show that under strong agglomeration effects, urban development is monotonic and ends up with circular, monocentric long-term configurations. For low agglomeration effects however, elongated and multicentric urban configurations may emerge. The occurrence and underlying dynamics of these configurations are also discussed regarding commuting costs and the distance-decay of agglomeration economies between firms. To sum up, our paper warns urban planning policy makers against the difference that may stand between appropriate long-term perspectives, represented here by analytic equilibrium configurations, and short-term urban configurations, simulated here by a multi-agent system.
authors: Center for Operations Research and Econometrics, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors: Justin
authors: J
authors: Delloye
authors: Center for Operations Research and Econometrics, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors: Dominique
authors: D
authors: Peeters
authors: Center for Operations Research and Econometrics, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors: Isabelle
authors: I
authors: Thomas
mesh_terms: D002947:Cities / Q000191:economics*; D002958:City Planning / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends; D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005843:Geography / Q000191:economics*; D000066506:Heuristics; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011157:Population Dynamics / Q000639:trends; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population; D014506:Urban Renewal / Q000191:economics; D014507:Urbanization / Q000639:trends*