Urban and regional models: integration across space, time and policy fields

Urban and regional models have been developed for different policy fields at different levels of spatial and temporal resolution. But it has become apparent that many policy fields are interdependent and need to be modelled together. The first urban and regional models were aggregate in space and comparative-static in time. More recently new data sources and computing techniques have stimulated a trend towards ever more disaggregation in space and time culminating in agent-based, activity-based microsimulation despite its data needs, computing requirements and theoretical problems. This paper argues for models that are instead multi-level and multi-scale in subsystems, space and time.

Michael Wegener was a Professor in Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund University and a Visiting Professor at Tokyo University and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, and is now a partner at Spiekermann & Wegener, Urban and Regional Research, Dortmund [Website].

Presentation slides  Video

Go to detailed agenda.

Go to list of participants.