What are the Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of Cellular Automata Based Integrated Urban Models?
Dynamic modelling of urban and regional systems, though it has independent roots, is now being integrated into the broader mainstream of research into self-organising systems. This emerging field represents a fusion of three areas: • The theory of systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Structure proliferates in systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium (see, for example, Prigogine and Stengers 1984; Nicolis 1989). Cities, like all living systems, are far from equilibrium, maintained in that state by a constant influx of energy and a constant export of entropy in the form of waste products. Such systems generate their own structure as they episodically pass through bifurcation points where a restructuring takes place; for example, as energy use increases, a monocentric city may become unstable and quickly evolve to a polycentric form. • The theory of complex systems. This is a rapidly developing theory of the nature of evolving rule-based structures (see, for exa
