A Complex Network Approach to Urban Growth

Claes Andersson (), Koen Frenken and Alexander Hellervik
Additional contact information
Alexander Hellervik: Department of Mathematical Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, England

Environment and Planning A, 2006, vol. 38, issue 10, 1941-1964

Abstract: Economic geography can be viewed as a large and growing network of interacting activities. This fundamental network structure and the large size of such systems makes the complex network approach an attractive model for growth dynamics modeling. In this paper the authors propose the use of complex networks for geographical modeling and demonstrate how such an application can be combined with a cellular model to produce output that is consistent with large-scale regularities such as power laws and fractality. Complex networks can provide a stringent framework for growth dynamic modeling where concepts from, for example, spatial interaction models and multiplicative growth models, can be combined with the flexible representation of land and behaviour found in cellular automata and agent-based models. In addition, there exists a large body of theory for the analysis of complex networks that have direct applications in urban geographic problems. The intended use of such models is twofold: (1) to address the problem of how the empirically observed hierarchical structure of settlements can be explained as a stationary property of a stochastic evolutionary process rather than as equilibrium points in a dynamic process, and, (2) to improve the predictive quality of applied urban modeling.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a37418 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: A complex network approach to urban growth (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:38:y:2006:i:10:p:1941-1964

DOI: 10.1068/a37418

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().