Time: Monday 27 April, 16:00 - 17:30.

Session: A080
Forecasting the Magnitude, Location, and Form of Urban Growth

Location: TNT, Ältestenrat Room

Convenors: Michail Fragkias, Karen Seto, Peter Marcotullio

The purpose of the session is to discuss the state of the art systems in urban growth forecasting and their utility
for practitioners, planners, policymakers, conservation agencies and other stakeholders who have an interest in
identifying the likely location, size and shape of future urban growth; also, to facilitate a discussion among users and
developers of models (and parties responsible for the generation of required data) to assess the gap in needs.

The session will present aspects of modeling and forecasting urban growth across the globe. Questions to be dis-
cussed during the session include: what do we know about the future urban landscape and how it relates to other
land uses? How will the magnitude and shape of urban areas affect and be affected by global environmental change?
What is the policy relevance of urban growth models; do they provide solutions to problems associated with rapid
urbanization in the face of global environmental change? Are there steps to be taken that make urban growth fore-
casting more policy relevant?

Peri-urbanization and environmental change in Taiwan: Effects of globalization

and institutional failure

Presenter: Shu-Li Huang, National Taipei University, Taiwan

Authors: Shu-Li Huang (1), Szu-Hua Wang (1)
National Taipei University, Taipei, - (1)

Global environmental change has prompted concerns regarding the role of urban areas in global systems. The
consequences of increased urbanization and sprawl often resulted in the loss of valuable natural environment and
resource base in peri-urban areas. The rapid economic growth of Taiwan from 1970-2000 transformed the island
from a rural economy into an industrialized one and nearly 80% of the people of Taiwan currently live in urban
areas. This study uses Taipei as a case study for analyzing the socioeconomic causes and environmental effects of
peri-urbanization. Land cover change, classified from satellite images during past decades, is used in combination
with socioeconomic data to analyze the spatial pattern and driving force of peri-urbanization in Taipei. The results
of analysis indicate that the institutional failure is the cause of urban growth in peri-urban areas. Given the strict
and inflexible zoning ordinances in urban planning areas, a significant proportion of the increase of built-up areas is
from the conversion of prime agricultural land in non-urban planning areas. Issues of environmental change as a re-
sult of peri-urbanization in Taipei area are also discussed. An integrated model is developed, via the combination of
stock-flow models and agent-based models, for simulating the likely location of urban growth and the consequential
effects on ecosystem services in Taipei’s peri-urban areas. Strategies of institutional arrangement and environmen-
tal governance for coping with the problems of peri-urbanization in Taiwan are also proposed.

Evolving rank-size distributions of intra-metropolitan urban clusters: implications for

environmental change

Presenter: Michail Fragkias, Arizona State University, United States

Authors: Michail Fragkias (1), Karen Seto (2)
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States (1), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States (2)

Conceptualizing the evolution of complex adaptive urban systems is today crucial in the study of change in social-
ecological systems. Urban areas interact bi-directionally with the global environment and knowledge regarding
their growth (in population, extent and form) can help us better understand all the relevant interactions.
This paper focuses on the analysis of the evolution of urban clusters - contiguous urban built-up areas in three
rapidly growing Chinese cities. After reporting the general characteristics of urban clusters between 1988 and 1999
(in terms of number, size, and morphology) we discuss the rank-size estimation results of the urban settlement
area distributions in selected Pearl River Delta metropolitan areas, namely Shenzhen, Foshan and Guangzhou. We
find evidence of substantial changes in the evolution of urban form as measured by the size distribution of urban
clusters; for all three metropolitan areas examined, the coefficient varies substantially and in an oscillatory fashion
within the 11 year period as the metropolitan areas grow through a process of cluster birth and coalescence.
Shedding more light on the evolving nature of urban clusters can help us better understand urban phenomena,
and make inferences on how related socioeconomic processes influence urban form which in turn has consider-
able effects in the ecology of the urban system. We discuss whether the effect of urban planning, growth control
and promotion policies (stronger top-down intervention rather than bottom-up dynamics that have been shown to
replicate power laws well) can be identified in our data.

Urban Sprawl in Brazil: How does demographic change affect Global Environmen-
tal Change at different scales?

Presenter: Ricardo Ojima, State University of Campinas - Unicamp, Brazil

Authors: Ricardo Ojima (1), Daniel Hogan (1)
State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil (1)

Considering the impact of urbanization on global environmental change, the national urban system, city-regions,
metropolitan areas and individual municipalities, when examined separately, reveal different aspects of the relation-
ship and, therefore, permit different policy responses at different scales. Overall urban policy will be more effica-
cious with an integrated multi-scale approach. Considering the impact of the forms of urbanization on the drivers
of GEC (land use, water availability, carbon emissions and consumption patterns are all affected by the spatial
distribution of population in specific territories), urban sprawl is a phenomenon which requires more study. Brazil
is already predominantly urban (more than 80%); the large-scale rural-urban and interregional migration which
brought this about have receded in importance; but built-up urban areas continue to increase in size as lower densi-
ties become more common. This growing sprawl results more from consumer preferences than from pure demo-
graphic growth, but the demographic composition of sprawl is an issue little understand and which this paper will
discuss in detail. The paper builds on a national-level analysis of urban sprawl in Brazil (the author’s doctoral disser-
tation), seeking to validate and amplify the study of sprawl at local and regional scales. The range of policy options
at the metropolitan and municipal levels will be clearer than when sprawl is viewed in its country-wide dimension.
Of particular interest is the use of digitalized census maps in conjunction with socio-demographic data, a method
more appropriate at these scales.

Understanding urban growth and local livelihoods in megacity regions

Presenter: Patrick Hostert, Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany

Authors: Patrick Hostert (1), Patrick Griffiths (1), Sebastian van der Linden (1), Oliver Grübner (1),
Daniel Müller (2), Tobia Lakes (1)
Humboldt-University Berlin, Berlin, Germany (1), IAMO, Halle, Germany (2)

Dhaka is one of the fastest growing megacities world-wide and has exponentially grown since the 1970s, increasing
its population more than twenty-fold. We analyse spatio-temporal patterns and processes related to the growth of
Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. Our research specifically focuses on interpreting megacity growth based on satellite
data. It is the first study to estimate urban expansion and related growth statistics for the whole megacity area. In-
terpretation of Dhaka’s growth over a 20-year period allows gaining a deeper understanding of growth mechanisms,
underlying drivers of urban expansion, and their effects on local livelihoods. To achieve this, we relate satellite
based and participatory mapping in the slums of Dhaka.
We suggest that the city’s expansion has been constrained by low topography and surrounding tributary rivers of
the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin. These physical constraints result on the one hand in extreme densification of urban
areas and on the other hand on enormous land in-filling. The latter affects either prime agricultural land in the im-
mediate surroundings of the city or flood-prone areas, thereby increasing the risk of being flooded. Our results ex-
plain how urban growth and urban densification severely impact environmental conditions and thus the quality of
life in megacities. Especially in the world’s developing countries, urban planning lacks a functioning administrative
infrastructure, which in turn hampers more sustainable development. Linking remote sensing with on-the-ground
information provides insights and approaches that can help to overcome these constraints.
Evaluation of the urban transformations of the Curitiba: how to deal with urban
growth and demographic challenges?

Presenter: Andrea Young, State University of Campinas, Brazil

Authors: Andrea Young (1), Ricardo Ojima (1)
State University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil (1)

The aim of this study refers to the analysis of land use changes in Curitiba (PR), in terms of patterns of landscape
transformations. Therefore, three areas of Curitiba (Brazil) were selected by specific criteria and were studied and
compared. Landsat TM and ETM+ images were used to identify different patterns of land cover providing a land
use classification. In order to separate vegetated from built-up surfaces, the Normalized Difference Vegetation
Index (NDVI) was used as an indicator of vegetation presence. Additionally, it was accomplished the application of
population densities and spatial fragmentation indices. A database was built identifying the main characteristics of
population of each area, serving as support for an analysis between variables, providing scenarios for subsequent
conflicts caused by landscape changes associated to demography pressures and urban growth understanding it as
a proxy for a more sprawled pattern of urban expansion. By applying these techniques it was possible to verify the
importance of the size and distribution of population as well as the pressures exercised by the urban growth on the
vegetation areas in order to identify the recent spatial configurations and their environmental impacts. This com-
parative approach has demonstrated how landscape can be derived from satellite imagery providing a representa-
tion of changes in the urban spatial structure. Summarizing, the research presents the challenges for the urban
planning, contributing to reduce the urban environmental footprint searching for a more sustainable urban growth.

From Bangalore to the Bay Area: Comparing Transportation and Activity Accessi-
bility as Drivers of Urban Growth

Presenter: Michael Reilly, School of Earth Sciences, Stanford University, United States
Authors: Michael Reilly (1) Margaret O’Mara (2) Karen Seto (3)
School of Earth Sciences, Stanford University, United States (1), Yale University, United States (3)

What determines urban growth and how do these factors vary globally? An understanding of the factors that drive
urban spatial form will be critical for urban—and ultimately environmental—sustainability. We hypothesize that
easy access to economic or social activity is a primary driver of urban form. From this, a city’s spatial form is largely
determined by the time–cost of access to transportation and activities. We use a stochastic pixel-based model to
test the hypothesis of accessibility-driven urban growth using two case studies: Silicon Valley, U.S., and Bangalore,
India. This study is the first to develop a spatially explicit modeling approach to urban growth in a compara-
tive framework spanning the developed and developing world. Our analysis shows that Silicon Valley’s relatively
inexpensive auto-based transport (in time and financial costs), dispersed employment locations, and high labor
force participation rates have resulted in intermittent and expansive highway-oriented urban growth patterns. In
contrast, Bangalore’s expensive non-auto transport (in time and financial costs), low participation in the formal
economy, and emphasis on informal economic activity has produced a tighter clustering of urban development near
existing urban locations. Over time, generally decreasing transport costs in both locations have led to increased
dispersion of urban development. Economic growth in India and the inflows of IT-related foreign investment in
Bangalore may further create urban forms increasingly similar to those found in the Silicon Valley. The results have
important implications for the development of policies that may lead to more sustainable forms of urban develop-
ment.