A Simple Locational Model - John Jason Fallows

While there are many sophisticated urban growth and planning models (e.g. the SLEUTH model and UrbanSim), there are also many more theoretical ones which say explore the evolution of land markets. Take for example Alonso’s (1964) urban land market theory. In this theory firms or residents desire a certain amount of space and this desire for space leads to competition for land and specific locations and thus driving up the price in the most accessible areas.

To this we have created a simple model which replicates what is postulated in Alonso’s (1964) urban land market theory. The original model (Crooks, 2007) was created in Repast J (more details and source code can be found here) and now it has been replicated in NetLogo (and can be downloaded from https://github.com/acrooks2/Bid-Rent-Model). The basic model logic is presented in the figure below and a movie of simulation is also provided. However, unlike the original Alonso (1964) model, by using agents we can incorporate issues such as time, therefore allowing the system to adapt and evolve to changes in the environment, for example infrastructure investment or population growth. The NetLogo model “Info” tab has several suggestions on extending the basic model if you so desire. While for interested readers more complex land market models are also available such as Filatova et al (2009) land market model and Magliocca et al (2011) model of coupled housing and land markets

Basic Model Logic: Searching for the “best” location.

References:

Alonso, W. (1964), Location and Land Use: Toward a General Theory of Land Rent, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Crooks, A.T. (2007), Experimenting with Cities: Utilizing Agent-Based Models and GIS to Explore Urban Dynamics, PhD Thesis, University College London, London, England.
Filatova, T., Parker, D. and van der Veen, A. (2009), ‘Agent-Based Urban Land Markets: Agent’s Pricing Behavior, Land Prices and Urban Land Use Change’, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 12(1), Available at http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/12/1/3.html.
Magliocca, N., Safirova, E., McConnell, V. and Walls, M. (2011), ‘An Economic Agent-based Model of Coupled Housing and Land Markets (CHALMS)’, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 35(3): 183-191.

This information was first published on https://www.gisagents.org/2020/03/a-simple-locational-model.html