A 'science of cities and regions' is critical for meeting future
challenges. The world is urbanising: huge cities are being created and
are continuing to grow rapidly. There are many planning and development
issues arising in different manifestations in countries across the
globe. These developments can, in principle, be simulated through
mathematical computer models which provide tools for forecasting and
testing future scenarios and plans. These models can represent the
functioning of cities and regions, predicting the spatial demography and
the economy, the main flows such as journey to work or to services, and
the mechanisms of future evolution. In this book, the main principles
involved in the design of this range of models are articulated,
providing an account of the current state of the art as well as future
research challenges.
Alan Wilson has over forty years working with urban and regional models
and has contributed important discoveries. He has distilled this
experience into what serves as both an introduction and a review of the
research frontier. Topics covered include the Lowry model, the retail
model, principles of account-based models and the methods rooted in
Boltzmann-style statistical modelling and the Lotka-Volterra approach to
system evolution. Applications range from urban and regional planning to
wars and epidemics.