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Moira Zellner

University of Illinois at Chicago, Urban Planning and Policy, Faculty Member

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Moira Zellner is an associate professor in the Department of Urban
Planning and Policy and a research associate professor in the Institute
for Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Illinois at
Chicago. Having completed her undergraduate degree in ecology in
Argentina, she pursued graduate studies in urban and regional planning and
in complex systems at the University of Michigan. In her position at UIC,
Dr. Zellner has served as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator in
interdisciplinary projects examining how specific policy, technological
and behavioral factors influence the emergence and impacts of a range of
complex environmental problems, where interaction effects make
responsibilities and burdens unclear. Her research also examines the value
of complexity-based modeling for participatory policy exploration and
social learning with stakeholders and decision-makers.

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Jaan-Henrik Kain

University of Gothenburg

Battistina Cugusi

University of Oregon

Pace University

Albany Law School

François Mancebo

Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne

André Botequilha-Leitão

Universidade do Algarve

King's College London

KU Leuven

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Papers by Moira Zellner

Wicked Problems, Foolish Decisions: Promoting Sustainability through Urban Governance in a Complex World Symposium: Governing Wicked Problems

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1643 ... more INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1643 I. HOW DO PLANNERS THINK ABOUT COMPLEXITY AND WICKED PROBLEMS? .......................................................... 1648 II. HOW DO PLANNERS THINK ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY? ........ 1654 III. THE CONUNDRUM OF RECONCILING GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY ......................................................... 1662 A. Case 1: Ecogentrification ....................................... 1666 B. Case 2: Megaregional Sustainability: A New Geography in Search of Governance ...................... 1671 IV. UNPACKING COMPLEXITY TO UNDERSTAND ECOGENTRIFICATION AND THE CHALLENGES OF MEGAREGIONAL SUSTAINABILITY ...................................... 1675 CONCLUSION: ADAPTATION, COMPLEXITY, GOVERNANCE ............. 1683

The emergence of zoning policy games in exurban jurisdictions: Informing collective action theory

by Derek Robinson, Moira Zellner, and Bobbi S Low

Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of c... more Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of common goods such as forested open space; such outcome is often characterized as a Prisoner's Dilemma game. Numerous cases exist in which neighboring jurisdictions cooperate to maintain public goods, challenging the expected results, yet theoretical explanations of these cases have not been fully developed. In this paper, we use an agent-based model to explore how underlying micro-behaviors affect the pay-offs obtained by two neighboring municipalities in a hypothetical exurban area. Payoffs are measured in terms of regional forested space and of local tax revenue at the end of the agent-based simulations; the municipalities affect these payoffs through their choice of residential zoning policies and the spillover effect between the neighboring jurisdictions. Zoning restrictions influence the conversion of farmland into residential subdivisions of different types, and consequently the location of heterogeneous residential households in the region. Developers and residents respond to the changing landscape characteristics, thus establishing a feedback between early and future land-use patterns. The structure of the simulated payoffs is analyzed using standard game theory. Our analysis shows that a variety of games, in addition to Prisoner's Dilemma, can emerge between the neighboring jurisdictions. Other games encourage coordination or subsidization, offering some explanations for the unexpected observations. The game realized in any given context depends on the initial characteristics of the landscape, the value given to the objectives each township seeks to maximize, and the income distribution of the population.

Exurbia from the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a complex system

by Derek Robinson and Moira Zellner

Geoforum, Jan 1, 2008

We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex pro... more We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex processes of land-use and land-cover change in exurban parts of Southeastern Michigan. Based on two different conceptual models, one describing the evolution of urban form as a consequence of residential preferences and the other describing land-cover changes in an exurban township as a consequence of residential preferences, local policies, and a diversity of development types, we describe a variety of empirical data collected to support the mechanisms that we encoded in computational agent-based models. We used multiple methods, including social surveys, remote sensing, and statistical analysis of spatial data, to collect data that could be used to validate the structure of our models, calibrate their specific parameters, and evaluate their output. The data were used to investigate this system in the context of several themes from complexity science, including have (a) macro-level patterns; (b) autonomous decision making entities (i.e., agents); (c) heterogeneity among those entities; (d) social and spatial interactions that operate across multiple scales and (e) nonlinear feedback mechanisms. The results point to the importance of collecting data on agents and their interactions when producing agent-based models, the general validity of our conceptual models, and some changes that we needed to make to these models following data analysis. The calibrated models have been and are being used to evaluate landscape dynamics and the effects of various policy interventions on urban land-cover patterns.

Exploring the Influence of Urban Form on Work Travel Behavior with Agent-Based Modeling

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Feb 3, 2015

This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based mo... more This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based modeling. A simulation model for a hypothetical urban area loosely based on the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area was used to study the impact of six land use regulation scenarios on transit use and urban form. The key features and techniques of the model development and the scenarios tested are described. The results from the simulations showed that although the land use regulations that were designed to increase the density near the transit station or in and near the urban core were able to achieve the intended land use patterns, they did not increase the transit mode share for the region in a significant manner. More detailed examination of the output revealed that as long as the rules for mode choice, the distribution of employment, and the transit network remained unchanged, land use regulations that affect residential locations produced limited effects on transit use.

Advancing Collective Decision-Making Theory with Integrated Agent-Based Modeling and Ethnographic Data Analysis: An Example in Ecological Restoration

by Dean Massey, Moira Zellner, and Cristy Watkins

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2014

The Complex Interaction Of Agents And Environments: An Example In Urban Sprawl

We present and evaluate a foundational agent-based model of land use change at the rural-urban fr... more We present and evaluate a foundational agent-based model of land use change at the rural-urban fringe within the context of a larger project that will link to surveys of the environmental and community preferences of residents with historical data on patterns of development. In this paper, we focus on the dynamics arising from a model of residential location resulting from preferences for services, density, and aesthetics focusing on the relationship between micro level preferences and policy relevant macro phenomena such as scattered development, largest city size, and the number of residential clusters. We consider two representations of agents' utility functions -- one additively separable and one multiplicative -- to see if functional form has any impact on the dynamics of the system, and find that they produce similar results. Our analysis includes both representative agent runs, in which all agents have identical preferences, as well as runs in which the agents have divers...

The effect of bus transportation on the tuberculosis disease dynamic at population level

New Frameworks for Urban Sustainability Assessments: Linking Complexity, Information and Policy

Statistical Validation of Spatial Patterns in Agent-Based Models

We present and evaluate an agent-based model (ABM) of land use change at the rural-urban fringe. ... more We present and evaluate an agent-based model (ABM) of land use change at the rural-urban fringe. This paper is part of a project that links the ABM to surveys of residential preferences and historical patterns of development. Validation is an important issue for such models and we discuss the use of distributional phenomena as a method of validation. We then

Paper to parameters

by Moira Zellner and Tia Shelley

Proceedings of the 12th ACM international conference adjunct papers on Ubiquitous computing - Ubicomp '10, 2010

We present a new low-cost paper-based user interface strategy (Paper-to-Parameters) for making in... more We present a new low-cost paper-based user interface strategy (Paper-to-Parameters) for making interaction with simulations of complex systems pragmatic within an Environmental Science curriculum. Students specify initial simulation conditions by sticking pieces of paper to a wall, and can experiment with the simulation by repositioning the pieces of paper. Computer vision recognizes the paper-based symbols and converts them into parameters used by the simulation. This tangible input approach contrasts with current slider-and programmingbased approaches for interacting with simulations. We hypothesize that the affordances of this interaction strategy better supports manipulations of spatial simulation parameters. We report here on the initial prototype of the system, and present plans for future work studying its impact on spatially-rooted understandings Author

Evaluating the embodiment benefits of a paper-based tui for educational simulations

by Moira Zellner and Tia Shelley

Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI EA '11, 2011

Many claims have been made regarding the potential benefits of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs). P... more Many claims have been made regarding the potential benefits of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs). Presented here is an experiment assessing the usability, problem solving, and collaboration benefits of a TUI for direct placement tasks in spatially-explicit simulations for environmental science education. To create a low-cost deployment for single-computer classrooms, the TUI uses a webcam and computer vision to recognize the placement of paper symbols on a map. An authentic green infrastructure urban planning problem was used as the task for a within-subjects with rotation experiment with 20 pairs of participants. Because no prior experimental study has isolated the influence of the embodied nature of the TUI on usability, problem solving, and collaboration, a control condition was designed to highlight the impact of embodiment. While this study did not establish the usability benefits suggested by prior research, certain problem solving and collaboration advantages were measured.

Exploring the Influence of Urban Form on Work Travel Behavior with Agent-Based Modeling

by Kazuya Kawamura and Moira Zellner

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2008

This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based mo... more This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based modeling. A simulation model for a hypothetical urban area loosely based on the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area was used to study the impact of six land use regulation scenarios on transit use and urban form. The key features and techniques of the model development and the scenarios tested are described. The results from the simulations showed that although the land use regulations that were designed to increase the density near the transit station or in and near the urban core were able to achieve the intended land use patterns, they did not increase the transit mode share for the region in a significant manner. More detailed examination of the output revealed that as long as the rules for mode choice, the distribution of employment, and the transit network remained unchanged, land use regulations that affect residential locations produced limited effects on transit use.

Embracing Complexity and Uncertainty: The Potential of Agent-Based Modeling for Environmental Planning and Policy

Planning Theory & Practice, 2008

Environmental degradation is often defined as a public goods problem, emerging when property righ... more Environmental degradation is often defined as a public goods problem, emerging when property rights are not clearly defined and costs are externalized to other parties. Proposing corrective regulation that enforces technological fixes or market-based approaches is often met with political resistance and doubts about its effectiveness. This is partly due to the complexity of interacting physical and socio-economic components that

The emergence of zoning policy games in exurban jurisdictions: Informing collective action theory

by D. Brown and Moira Zellner

Land Use Policy, 2009

Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of c... more Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of common goods such as forested open space; such outcome is often characterized as a Prisoner's Dilemma game. Numerous cases exist in which neighboring jurisdictions cooperate to maintain public goods, challenging the expected results, yet theoretical explanations of these cases have not been fully developed. In this paper, we use an agent-based model to explore how underlying micro-behaviors affect the payoffs obtained by two neighboring municipalities in a hypothetical exurban area. Payoffs are measured in terms of regional forested space and of local tax revenue at the end of the agent-based simulations; the municipalities affect these payoffs through their choice of residential zoning policies and the spillover effect between the neighboring jurisdictions. Zoning restrictions influence the conversion of farmland into residential subdivisions of different types, and consequently the location of heterogeneous residential households in the region. Developers and residents respond to the changing landscape characteristics, thus establishing a feedback between early and future land-use patterns. The structure of the simulated payoffs is analyzed using standard game theory. Our analysis shows that a variety of games, in addition to Prisoner's Dilemma, can emerge between the neighboring jurisdictions. Other games encourage coordination or subsidization, offering some explanations for the unexpected observations. The game realized in any given context depends on the initial characteristics of the landscape, the value given to the objectives each township seeks to maximize, and the income distribution of the population. (M.L. Zellner). 1 Depending on the issue and context, inefficiencies may also result in overprovision of public goods Kunce and Shogren, 2005a,b). 0264-8377/$ -see front matter

Examining the contradiction in ‘sustainable urban growth’: an example of groundwater sustainability

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2012

The environmental planning literature proposes a set of ‘best management practices’ for urban dev... more The environmental planning literature proposes a set of ‘best management practices’ for urban development that assumes improvement in environmental quality as a result of specific urban patterns. These best management practices, however, often do not recognise finite biophysical limits and social impacts that urban patterns alone cannot overcome. To shed light on this debate, we explore the effects of different

Path dependence and the validation of agent‐based spatial models of land use

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 2005

In this paper, we identify two distinct notions of accuracy of land-use models and highlight a te... more In this paper, we identify two distinct notions of accuracy of land-use models and highlight a tension between them. A model can have predictive accuracy: its predicted land-use pattern can be highly correlated with the actual land-use pattern. A model can also have process accuracy: the process by which locations or land-use patterns are determined can be consistent with real world processes. To balance these two potentially conflicting motivations, we introduce the concept of the invariant region, i.e., the area where land-use type is almost certain, and thus path independent; and the variant region, i.e., the area where land use depends on a particular series of events, and is thus path dependent. We demonstrate our methods using an agent-based land-use model and using multitemporal land-use data collected for Washtenaw County, Michigan, USA. The results indicate that, using the methods we describe, researchers can improve their ability to communicate how well their model performs, the situations or instances in which it does not perform well, and the cases in which it is relatively unlikely to predict well because of either path dependence or stochastic uncertainty.

Linking MODFLOW with an Agent-Based Land-Use Model to Support Decision Making

Ground Water, 2010

The U.S. Geological Survey numerical groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, was integrated with an agen... more The U.S. Geological Survey numerical groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, was integrated with an agentbased land-use model to yield a simulator for environmental planning studies. Ultimately, this integrated simulator will be used as a means to organize information, illustrate potential system responses, and facilitate communication within a participatory modeling framework. Initial results show the potential system response to different zoning policy scenarios in terms of the spatial patterns of development, which is referred to as urban form, and consequent impacts on groundwater levels. These results illustrate how the integrated simulator is capable of representing the complexity of the system. From a groundwater modeling perspective, the most important aspect of the integration is that the simulator generates stresses on the groundwater system within the simulation in contrast to the traditional approach that requires the user to specify the stresses through time.

Exurbia from the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a complex system

by Moira Zellner, Bobbi S Low, and Derek Robinson

Geoforum, 2008

We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex pro... more We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex processes of land-use and land-cover change in exurban parts of Southeastern Michigan. Based on two different conceptual models, one describing the evolution of urban form as a consequence of residential preferences and the other describing land-cover changes in an exurban township as a consequence of residential preferences, local policies, and a diversity of development types, we describe a variety of empirical data collected to support the mechanisms that we encoded in computational agent-based models. We used multiple methods, including social surveys, remote sensing, and statistical analysis of spatial data, to collect data that could be used to validate the structure of our models, calibrate their specific parameters, and evaluate their output. The data were used to investigate this system in the context of several themes from complexity science, including have (a) macro-level patterns; (b) autonomous decision making entities (i.e., agents); (c) heterogeneity among those entities; (d) social and spatial interactions that operate across multiple scales and (e) nonlinear feedback mechanisms. The results point to the importance of collecting data on agents and their interactions when producing agent-based models, the general validity of our conceptual models, and some changes that we needed to make to these models following data analysis. The calibrated models have been and are being used to evaluate landscape dynamics and the effects of various policy interventions on urban land-cover patterns.

The problem with zoning: nonlinear effects of interactions between location preferences and externalities on land use and utility

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2010

Generating policies for sustainable water use in complex scenarios: an integrated land-use and water-use model of Monroe County, Michigan

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2007

Rapidly declining groundwater levels since the early 1990s have raised serious concern in Monroe ... more Rapidly declining groundwater levels since the early 1990s have raised serious concern in Monroe County, Michigan. Hydrological studies suggest that land-use changes have caused this decline. The mechanisms linking land-use and groundwater dynamics are not clear, however. In this paper I present WULUM, the Water-Use and Land-Use Model, an agent-based model that serves as an analytical framework to understand how

Wicked Problems, Foolish Decisions: Promoting Sustainability through Urban Governance in a Complex World Symposium: Governing Wicked Problems

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1643 ... more INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1643 I. HOW DO PLANNERS THINK ABOUT COMPLEXITY AND WICKED PROBLEMS? .......................................................... 1648 II. HOW DO PLANNERS THINK ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY? ........ 1654 III. THE CONUNDRUM OF RECONCILING GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY ......................................................... 1662 A. Case 1: Ecogentrification ....................................... 1666 B. Case 2: Megaregional Sustainability: A New Geography in Search of Governance ...................... 1671 IV. UNPACKING COMPLEXITY TO UNDERSTAND ECOGENTRIFICATION AND THE CHALLENGES OF MEGAREGIONAL SUSTAINABILITY ...................................... 1675 CONCLUSION: ADAPTATION, COMPLEXITY, GOVERNANCE ............. 1683

The emergence of zoning policy games in exurban jurisdictions: Informing collective action theory

by Derek Robinson, Moira Zellner, and Bobbi S Low

Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of c... more Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of common goods such as forested open space; such outcome is often characterized as a Prisoner's Dilemma game. Numerous cases exist in which neighboring jurisdictions cooperate to maintain public goods, challenging the expected results, yet theoretical explanations of these cases have not been fully developed. In this paper, we use an agent-based model to explore how underlying micro-behaviors affect the pay-offs obtained by two neighboring municipalities in a hypothetical exurban area. Payoffs are measured in terms of regional forested space and of local tax revenue at the end of the agent-based simulations; the municipalities affect these payoffs through their choice of residential zoning policies and the spillover effect between the neighboring jurisdictions. Zoning restrictions influence the conversion of farmland into residential subdivisions of different types, and consequently the location of heterogeneous residential households in the region. Developers and residents respond to the changing landscape characteristics, thus establishing a feedback between early and future land-use patterns. The structure of the simulated payoffs is analyzed using standard game theory. Our analysis shows that a variety of games, in addition to Prisoner's Dilemma, can emerge between the neighboring jurisdictions. Other games encourage coordination or subsidization, offering some explanations for the unexpected observations. The game realized in any given context depends on the initial characteristics of the landscape, the value given to the objectives each township seeks to maximize, and the income distribution of the population.

Exurbia from the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a complex system

by Derek Robinson and Moira Zellner

Geoforum, Jan 1, 2008

We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex pro... more We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex processes of land-use and land-cover change in exurban parts of Southeastern Michigan. Based on two different conceptual models, one describing the evolution of urban form as a consequence of residential preferences and the other describing land-cover changes in an exurban township as a consequence of residential preferences, local policies, and a diversity of development types, we describe a variety of empirical data collected to support the mechanisms that we encoded in computational agent-based models. We used multiple methods, including social surveys, remote sensing, and statistical analysis of spatial data, to collect data that could be used to validate the structure of our models, calibrate their specific parameters, and evaluate their output. The data were used to investigate this system in the context of several themes from complexity science, including have (a) macro-level patterns; (b) autonomous decision making entities (i.e., agents); (c) heterogeneity among those entities; (d) social and spatial interactions that operate across multiple scales and (e) nonlinear feedback mechanisms. The results point to the importance of collecting data on agents and their interactions when producing agent-based models, the general validity of our conceptual models, and some changes that we needed to make to these models following data analysis. The calibrated models have been and are being used to evaluate landscape dynamics and the effects of various policy interventions on urban land-cover patterns.

Exploring the Influence of Urban Form on Work Travel Behavior with Agent-Based Modeling

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Feb 3, 2015

This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based mo... more This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based modeling. A simulation model for a hypothetical urban area loosely based on the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area was used to study the impact of six land use regulation scenarios on transit use and urban form. The key features and techniques of the model development and the scenarios tested are described. The results from the simulations showed that although the land use regulations that were designed to increase the density near the transit station or in and near the urban core were able to achieve the intended land use patterns, they did not increase the transit mode share for the region in a significant manner. More detailed examination of the output revealed that as long as the rules for mode choice, the distribution of employment, and the transit network remained unchanged, land use regulations that affect residential locations produced limited effects on transit use.

Advancing Collective Decision-Making Theory with Integrated Agent-Based Modeling and Ethnographic Data Analysis: An Example in Ecological Restoration

by Dean Massey, Moira Zellner, and Cristy Watkins

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2014

The Complex Interaction Of Agents And Environments: An Example In Urban Sprawl

We present and evaluate a foundational agent-based model of land use change at the rural-urban fr... more We present and evaluate a foundational agent-based model of land use change at the rural-urban fringe within the context of a larger project that will link to surveys of the environmental and community preferences of residents with historical data on patterns of development. In this paper, we focus on the dynamics arising from a model of residential location resulting from preferences for services, density, and aesthetics focusing on the relationship between micro level preferences and policy relevant macro phenomena such as scattered development, largest city size, and the number of residential clusters. We consider two representations of agents' utility functions -- one additively separable and one multiplicative -- to see if functional form has any impact on the dynamics of the system, and find that they produce similar results. Our analysis includes both representative agent runs, in which all agents have identical preferences, as well as runs in which the agents have divers...

The effect of bus transportation on the tuberculosis disease dynamic at population level

New Frameworks for Urban Sustainability Assessments: Linking Complexity, Information and Policy

Statistical Validation of Spatial Patterns in Agent-Based Models

We present and evaluate an agent-based model (ABM) of land use change at the rural-urban fringe. ... more We present and evaluate an agent-based model (ABM) of land use change at the rural-urban fringe. This paper is part of a project that links the ABM to surveys of residential preferences and historical patterns of development. Validation is an important issue for such models and we discuss the use of distributional phenomena as a method of validation. We then

Paper to parameters

by Moira Zellner and Tia Shelley

Proceedings of the 12th ACM international conference adjunct papers on Ubiquitous computing - Ubicomp '10, 2010

We present a new low-cost paper-based user interface strategy (Paper-to-Parameters) for making in... more We present a new low-cost paper-based user interface strategy (Paper-to-Parameters) for making interaction with simulations of complex systems pragmatic within an Environmental Science curriculum. Students specify initial simulation conditions by sticking pieces of paper to a wall, and can experiment with the simulation by repositioning the pieces of paper. Computer vision recognizes the paper-based symbols and converts them into parameters used by the simulation. This tangible input approach contrasts with current slider-and programmingbased approaches for interacting with simulations. We hypothesize that the affordances of this interaction strategy better supports manipulations of spatial simulation parameters. We report here on the initial prototype of the system, and present plans for future work studying its impact on spatially-rooted understandings Author

Evaluating the embodiment benefits of a paper-based tui for educational simulations

by Moira Zellner and Tia Shelley

Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI EA '11, 2011

Many claims have been made regarding the potential benefits of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs). P... more Many claims have been made regarding the potential benefits of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs). Presented here is an experiment assessing the usability, problem solving, and collaboration benefits of a TUI for direct placement tasks in spatially-explicit simulations for environmental science education. To create a low-cost deployment for single-computer classrooms, the TUI uses a webcam and computer vision to recognize the placement of paper symbols on a map. An authentic green infrastructure urban planning problem was used as the task for a within-subjects with rotation experiment with 20 pairs of participants. Because no prior experimental study has isolated the influence of the embodied nature of the TUI on usability, problem solving, and collaboration, a control condition was designed to highlight the impact of embodiment. While this study did not establish the usability benefits suggested by prior research, certain problem solving and collaboration advantages were measured.

Exploring the Influence of Urban Form on Work Travel Behavior with Agent-Based Modeling

by Kazuya Kawamura and Moira Zellner

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2008

This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based mo... more This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based modeling. A simulation model for a hypothetical urban area loosely based on the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area was used to study the impact of six land use regulation scenarios on transit use and urban form. The key features and techniques of the model development and the scenarios tested are described. The results from the simulations showed that although the land use regulations that were designed to increase the density near the transit station or in and near the urban core were able to achieve the intended land use patterns, they did not increase the transit mode share for the region in a significant manner. More detailed examination of the output revealed that as long as the rules for mode choice, the distribution of employment, and the transit network remained unchanged, land use regulations that affect residential locations produced limited effects on transit use.

Embracing Complexity and Uncertainty: The Potential of Agent-Based Modeling for Environmental Planning and Policy

Planning Theory & Practice, 2008

Environmental degradation is often defined as a public goods problem, emerging when property righ... more Environmental degradation is often defined as a public goods problem, emerging when property rights are not clearly defined and costs are externalized to other parties. Proposing corrective regulation that enforces technological fixes or market-based approaches is often met with political resistance and doubts about its effectiveness. This is partly due to the complexity of interacting physical and socio-economic components that

The emergence of zoning policy games in exurban jurisdictions: Informing collective action theory

by D. Brown and Moira Zellner

Land Use Policy, 2009

Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of c... more Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of common goods such as forested open space; such outcome is often characterized as a Prisoner's Dilemma game. Numerous cases exist in which neighboring jurisdictions cooperate to maintain public goods, challenging the expected results, yet theoretical explanations of these cases have not been fully developed. In this paper, we use an agent-based model to explore how underlying micro-behaviors affect the payoffs obtained by two neighboring municipalities in a hypothetical exurban area. Payoffs are measured in terms of regional forested space and of local tax revenue at the end of the agent-based simulations; the municipalities affect these payoffs through their choice of residential zoning policies and the spillover effect between the neighboring jurisdictions. Zoning restrictions influence the conversion of farmland into residential subdivisions of different types, and consequently the location of heterogeneous residential households in the region. Developers and residents respond to the changing landscape characteristics, thus establishing a feedback between early and future land-use patterns. The structure of the simulated payoffs is analyzed using standard game theory. Our analysis shows that a variety of games, in addition to Prisoner's Dilemma, can emerge between the neighboring jurisdictions. Other games encourage coordination or subsidization, offering some explanations for the unexpected observations. The game realized in any given context depends on the initial characteristics of the landscape, the value given to the objectives each township seeks to maximize, and the income distribution of the population. (M.L. Zellner). 1 Depending on the issue and context, inefficiencies may also result in overprovision of public goods Kunce and Shogren, 2005a,b). 0264-8377/$ -see front matter

Examining the contradiction in ‘sustainable urban growth’: an example of groundwater sustainability

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2012

The environmental planning literature proposes a set of ‘best management practices’ for urban dev... more The environmental planning literature proposes a set of ‘best management practices’ for urban development that assumes improvement in environmental quality as a result of specific urban patterns. These best management practices, however, often do not recognise finite biophysical limits and social impacts that urban patterns alone cannot overcome. To shed light on this debate, we explore the effects of different

Path dependence and the validation of agent‐based spatial models of land use

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 2005

In this paper, we identify two distinct notions of accuracy of land-use models and highlight a te... more In this paper, we identify two distinct notions of accuracy of land-use models and highlight a tension between them. A model can have predictive accuracy: its predicted land-use pattern can be highly correlated with the actual land-use pattern. A model can also have process accuracy: the process by which locations or land-use patterns are determined can be consistent with real world processes. To balance these two potentially conflicting motivations, we introduce the concept of the invariant region, i.e., the area where land-use type is almost certain, and thus path independent; and the variant region, i.e., the area where land use depends on a particular series of events, and is thus path dependent. We demonstrate our methods using an agent-based land-use model and using multitemporal land-use data collected for Washtenaw County, Michigan, USA. The results indicate that, using the methods we describe, researchers can improve their ability to communicate how well their model performs, the situations or instances in which it does not perform well, and the cases in which it is relatively unlikely to predict well because of either path dependence or stochastic uncertainty.

Linking MODFLOW with an Agent-Based Land-Use Model to Support Decision Making

Ground Water, 2010

The U.S. Geological Survey numerical groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, was integrated with an agen... more The U.S. Geological Survey numerical groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, was integrated with an agentbased land-use model to yield a simulator for environmental planning studies. Ultimately, this integrated simulator will be used as a means to organize information, illustrate potential system responses, and facilitate communication within a participatory modeling framework. Initial results show the potential system response to different zoning policy scenarios in terms of the spatial patterns of development, which is referred to as urban form, and consequent impacts on groundwater levels. These results illustrate how the integrated simulator is capable of representing the complexity of the system. From a groundwater modeling perspective, the most important aspect of the integration is that the simulator generates stresses on the groundwater system within the simulation in contrast to the traditional approach that requires the user to specify the stresses through time.

Exurbia from the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a complex system

by Moira Zellner, Bobbi S Low, and Derek Robinson

Geoforum, 2008

We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex pro... more We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex processes of land-use and land-cover change in exurban parts of Southeastern Michigan. Based on two different conceptual models, one describing the evolution of urban form as a consequence of residential preferences and the other describing land-cover changes in an exurban township as a consequence of residential preferences, local policies, and a diversity of development types, we describe a variety of empirical data collected to support the mechanisms that we encoded in computational agent-based models. We used multiple methods, including social surveys, remote sensing, and statistical analysis of spatial data, to collect data that could be used to validate the structure of our models, calibrate their specific parameters, and evaluate their output. The data were used to investigate this system in the context of several themes from complexity science, including have (a) macro-level patterns; (b) autonomous decision making entities (i.e., agents); (c) heterogeneity among those entities; (d) social and spatial interactions that operate across multiple scales and (e) nonlinear feedback mechanisms. The results point to the importance of collecting data on agents and their interactions when producing agent-based models, the general validity of our conceptual models, and some changes that we needed to make to these models following data analysis. The calibrated models have been and are being used to evaluate landscape dynamics and the effects of various policy interventions on urban land-cover patterns.

The problem with zoning: nonlinear effects of interactions between location preferences and externalities on land use and utility

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2010

Generating policies for sustainable water use in complex scenarios: an integrated land-use and water-use model of Monroe County, Michigan

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2007

Rapidly declining groundwater levels since the early 1990s have raised serious concern in Monroe ... more Rapidly declining groundwater levels since the early 1990s have raised serious concern in Monroe County, Michigan. Hydrological studies suggest that land-use changes have caused this decline. The mechanisms linking land-use and groundwater dynamics are not clear, however. In this paper I present WULUM, the Water-Use and Land-Use Model, an agent-based model that serves as an analytical framework to understand how