Complex Sciences. First International Conference, Complex 2009, Shanghai, China, February 23-25, 2009. Revised Papers, Part 1

Research Article

Morphological Similarities between DBM and an Economic Geography Model of City Growth

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-02466-5_40,
        author={Jean Cavailh\'{e}s and Pierre Frankhauser and Geoffrey Caruso and Dominique Peesters and Isabelle Thomas and Gilles Vuidel},
        title={Morphological Similarities between DBM and an Economic Geography Model of City Growth},
        proceedings={Complex Sciences. First International Conference, Complex 2009, Shanghai, China, February 23-25, 2009. Revised Papers, Part 1},
        proceedings_a={COMPLEX PART 1},
        year={2012},
        month={5},
        keywords={},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-642-02466-5_40}
    }
    
  • Jean Cavailhès
    Pierre Frankhauser
    Geoffrey Caruso
    Dominique Peesters
    Isabelle Thomas
    Gilles Vuidel
    Year: 2012
    Morphological Similarities between DBM and an Economic Geography Model of City Growth
    COMPLEX PART 1
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-02466-5_40
Jean Cavailhès1,*, Pierre Frankhauser2,*, Geoffrey Caruso3,*, Dominique Peesters4,*, Isabelle Thomas4,*, Gilles Vuidel5,*
  • 1: Research Director, INRA, UMR 1041, CESAER, Dijon
  • 2: University of Franche-Comté
  • 3: Professor, University of Luxembourg
  • 4: Catholic University of Louvain
  • 5: ThéMA, University of Franche-Comté
*Contact email: Jean.Cavailhes@enesad.inra.fr, pierre.frankhauser@univ-fcomte.fr, geoffrey.caruso@uni.lu, dominique.peeters@uclouvain.be, isabelle.thomas@uclouvain.be, gilles@vuidel.org

Abstract

An urban microeconomic model of households evolving in a 2D cellular automata allows to simulate the growth of a metropolitan area where land is devoted to housing, road network and agricultural/green areas. This system is self-organised: based on individualistic decisions of economic agents who compete on the land market, the model generates a metropolitan area with houses, roads, and agriculture. Several simulation are performed. The results show strong similarities with physical Dieletric breackdown models (DBM). In particular, phase transitions in the urban morphology occur when a control parameter reaches critical values. Population density in our model and the electric potential in DBM play similar roles, which can explain these resemblances.