UrbanSim
Investigators: Waddell, P. and Alberti. M.
In this project, land development is modeled using UrbanSim (Waddell et al. 2003), a behaviorally explicit model that simulates demographic, market, and real estate development behaviors at the parcel level. UrbanSim is a simulation system developed over the past ten years by the Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis at the University of Washington with funding from the National Science Foundation (Urban Research Initiative, Information Technology Research, Digital Government, and Biocomplexity) to model multiple interacting aspects of urban development. It interfaces with external macroeconomic and transportation models, and predicts the changes over time in the spatial distribution of households, jobs, and real estate quantities, types and prices. The system includes a set of interacting models, namely the economic and demographic transition models, the household and employment mobility models, the household and employment location choice models, the real estate development model, and the land price model.
The system is implemented as Open Source Software and is available at www.urbansim.org. The study area used for the application of UrbanSim to the Central Puget Sound region includes four counties: King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish. For a detailed report of the data, data processing and data input specific to this project see (http://www.urbansim.org/projects/psrc/documentation/tex/main_doc.pdf).
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