An Integrated Modeling Environment for Urban Change Research

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***9817761ClarkeThis Urban Research Initiative (URI) project will develop an integratedmodeling environment (IME) for the cross-disciplinary study of a widerange of questions pertaining to urban change. At the core of IME is amodel of evolving urban spatial structure already successfully appliedto the Baltimore/Washington and San Francisco metropolitan areas. Thisresearch drastically extends the capabilities of the previous model byallowing it to be combined with a variety of other models of naturaland social processes affecting the urban realm, by strengthening itstheoretical and technical base and analytical utility, and byintegrating it within a portable user-friendly environment for theinvestigation of a variety of urban research and policy questions.IME consists of two levels. At the IME-1 level the focus is on thechanging urban spatial structure, as in the earlier model, but now amuch more versatile and sophisticated range of urban growth models canbe built through the linkage with models of other natural and humanurban subsystems. The IME-2 level is for investigating more general,not directly geographic urban research and policy questions, whereurban spatial structure is one of several key factors. The researchplan consists of four interrelated tasks. Task One develops thetheoretical and technical framework for the IME. Task Two demonstratesand tests the validity of the approach at the IME-1 level throughmodeling and analyzing the growth patterns of selected metropolitanregions. Task Three demonstrates and tests the validity of theapproach at the IME-2 level with a study seeking to predict land useintensity and population distribution through coupling of severaldifferent models of physical and human processes, including a model ofurban spatial structure. Task Four focuses on the computationalimplementation and dissemination of the IME. Dissemination plansinclude the development of two (one undergraduate and one graduate)Web-based courses on urban change.***The project is multi-institutional, linking together the University ofCalifornia Santa Barbara and two other major federally funded projects: the Urban Retrospectives/Urban Dynamics initiative at the UnitedStates Geological Survey will provide the data for the metropolitanareas and assist with the more routine modeling work. The UrbanSecurity initiative at the Los Alamos National Laboratory willcontribute advanced expertise on the theoretical and technical aspectsof complex dynamic models, and on the coupling of physical sciencemodels with urban models. It will also provide access tosupercomputing resources where needed.