Computer simulations of the metropolis

Abstract

The history of modern computer simulation of urban affairs represents the confluence of a number of trends which came to maturity in the middle of this century. Probably the oldest of these tendencies is the emphasis on planned urban development which has existed for millennia and which in the last century has demonstrated considerable vitality as a reaction to the excesses of the industrial revolution and the poverty and squalor of nineteenth-century cities. A second strand is the development of economic and sociological theory which goes a considerable distance in explaining some aspects of the organization and form of metropolitan settlement and its growth. These theories have a long history, but have matured principally during the 1920's and 1930's. Finally, as a methodological catalyst, the development of the automobile, of a Federal Bureau of Public Roads dedicated to providing facilities for it, and of the large-scale metropolitan study based on the origin-and-destination survey have together made possible the crystallization and further growth of simulation methods. These methods are thus proximately based on the engineering attitude and computer technology of the large-scale transportation study, but they are in a position to draw on a number of other important streams of intellectual development.