Exploring Urban Dynamics in Latin American Cities Using an Agent-Based Simulation Approach

Abstract

The high rates of urban growth in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s produced rapid urbanization and housing problems. In developing countries, planning policies as well as the research community have approached urban growth as a static problem rather than as a spatial form that emerges from the urban development process and that is part of a constant dynamic process. This paper focuses on a specific kind of urban growth that happens in Latin American cities, called ‘peripherisation’. This is characterized by the formation of low-income residential areas in the peripheral ring of the city and a perpetuation of a dynamic core-periphery spatial pattern. The dynamics of growth and change in Latin American cities are explored using agent-based simulation. The objective is to increase the understanding of urban spatial phenomena in Latin American cities, which is essential to providing a basis for future planning actions and policies. The first part of the chapter presents a brief overview of urban growth and dynamics in Latin American cities. The Peripherisation Model is introduced, and its implementation and evaluation described. Simulation exercises were used to revisit assumptions about urbanization issues in Latin American cities and investigate important aspects of growth and change in these cities. These exercises allowed the problem of urban growth in Latin American cities to be unfolded through their dynamics, relating these dynamics to urban morphology, and thus presenting a new and important perspective on the phenomenon.