Source: adapted from Wegener, M. (1995) "Current and Future Land Use Models", Paper presented at the Land Use Model Conference, Texas Transportation Institute, Dallas.

Dynamics of Urban Change

The complexity of urban dynamics is further complicated by different temporal rates of change among its main components. While land use and transportation networks are very slow to change, their associated movements can change and adapt very quickly. As a result, changes in an urban area will range accordingly.

"Very slow change: networks, land use. Urban transportation, communications and utility networks are the most permanent elements of the physical structure of cities. Large infrastructure projects require a decade or more, and once in place, they are rarely abandoned. The land use distribution is equally stable; it changes only incrementally.

Slow changes: workplaces, housing. Buildings have a life-span of up to one hundred years and take several years from planning to completion. Workplaces (non-residential buildings) such as factories, warehouses, shopping centers or offices, theaters or universities exist much longer than the firms or institutions that occupy them, just as housing exists longer than the households that live in it.

Fast change: employment, population. Firms are established or closed down, expanded or relocated; this creates new jobs or makes workers redundant and so affects employment. Households are created, grow or decline and eventually are dissolved, and in each stage in their lifecycle adjust their housing consumption and location to their changing needs; this determines the distribution of population.

Immediate change: goods transport, travel. The location of human activities in space gives rise to a demand for spatial interaction in the form of goods transport or travel. These interactions are the most volatile phenomena of spatial urban development; they adjust in minutes or hours to changes in congestion or fluctuations in demand."

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