Towards integrated urban simulations

Abstract

More than half of the world population lives in urban areas. Urbanites are estimated to grow up to 68% of the population by 2050 [1]. This rapid growth requires new contributions from researchers and policy-makers to the development of the future city. Again, understanding how the city will grow is a crucial step in guiding this process towards the best outcome. Cities are highly complex systems that traditional urban dynamic simulations cannot grasp in their totality, if solved only in a lightly coupled way. In addition, a model is useful only if it can be used in the planning and management practice [2]. It’s true that, driven by the urge to improve their models, different sectors are developing multi-layered integrated simulations. Nevertheless, a wider scope of considering the city in its holistic behaviour is missing. Indeed, management, social, and technical barriers restrain the adoption of integrated models, such as ‘model complexity, user friendliness, administrative fragmentation and communication’ [3].