Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773

www.elsevier.com/locate/envsoft

iCity: A GISeCA modelling tool for urban

planning and decision making
D. Stevens a, S. Dragicevic a,*, K. Rothley b
a
Spatial Analysis and Modeling Laboratory, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive,
Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A1S6
b
School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A1S6
Received 2 August 2005; received in revised form 16 February 2006; accepted 24 February 2006
Available online 5 June 2006

Abstract

The objective of this study is to present a novel tool for predictive modelling of urban growth. The proposed tool, named iCity e Irregular
City, extends the traditional formalization of cellular automata (CA) to include an irregular spatial structure, asynchronous urban growth, and
a high spatio-temporal resolution to aid in spatial decision making for urban planning. The iCity software tool was developed as an embedded
model within a common desktop geographic information system (GIS) with a user-friendly interface to control modelling operations for urban
land-use change. This approach allows the model developer to focus on implementing model logic rather than developing an entire stand-alone
modelling application. It also provides the model user with a familiar environment in which to run the model to simulate urban growth.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Irregular cellular automata (CA); Complex systems modelling; Geographic information systems (GIS); Urban planning; Modelling urban growth;
ArcGIS; Visual Basic .NET 2003; ArcObjects

Software availability 2003), vulnerability of watersheds (Beck, 2005), increased

Name of software: iCity e Irregular City
Developer: Daniel Stevens
Software required: ArcGIS 9 (ArcInfo license)
Program language: Visual Basic .NET 2003 and ArcObjects
Availability and cost: Freely available by contacting authors
1. Introduction
Sustainability in urban development has become a critical
issue due to the high levels of urbanization in almost all parts
of the world (United Nations, 2004). Urban growth results in
environmental and social problems such as loss of prime agri-
cultural and forest land (Lopez et al., 2001; Munroe and York,
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 604 291 4621; fax: 1 604 291 5841.
E-mail address: suzanad@sfu.ca (S. Dragicevic).
traffic congestion (Ewing et al., 2003), and health problems
associated with a car-centric lifestyle (Ewing et al., 2003;
Frumkin, 2002) among others. Urban planners use a variety
of tools when developing strategies and plans to mitigate these
problems. Traditionally these have been prescriptive tools such
as geographic information systems (GIS) (Webster, 1994) or
descriptive tools such as computer aided drafting (CAD) soft-
ware and 3D visualization packages (Levy, 1995), as well as
traditional artists sketches and physical 3D scale models
(Appleton and Lovett, 2005). These tools, however, have had
little predictive capability (Webster, 1994).
For more than 20 years, researchers have been developing
modelling approaches to describe and predict urban growth
(Wu, 2005). These tools are based on complex systems theory
and favour the use of the cellular automata (CA) framework to
drive them (Benenson et al., 2005). However, only a few stud-
ies report on the use of CA-based models as part of spatial
decision support tools for land use and urban growth
management (de Kok et al., 2001; White et al., 2004).

1364-8152/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.02.004
762 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
Cellular automata is a bottom-up iterative process suitable
for modelling complex systems. CA operate on a regular
grid of cells each containing a single value that represents
the state of the cell at time t. The change in a cells state be-
tween initial time t and the following time (t 1) is deter-
mined by a local neighbourhood function. The state of cell i
at time (t 1) can be defined as
t1

Si f Sti ; Uti 1
where Sti represents the state of cell i at time t, and Uti repre-
sents the state of the neighbourhood of cell i at time t. A cells
neighbourhood can be defined as the von Neuman neighbour-
hood consisting of the four cardinal cells around cell i, the
Moore neighbourhood consisting of cell is eight first order ad-
jacent cells, or as directional or extended neighbourhoods
(White and Engelen, 2000). The local function that controls
the transition of a cells state is rule-based and often takes
the form of if.then statements, such that if the neighbourhood
of cell i, Ui , exhibits a certain pattern then change the state of
cell i, Sti , according to a set of rules (Batty, 1997). It is through
the iterative application of the transition rule, as it is also
known, that the systems emergent properties become
apparent.
Cellular automata have been used to model urban growth at
multiple scales, from regions (Clarke and Gaydos, 1998;
Clarke et al., 1997; Engelen et al., 1995; Landis, 1994; Sem-
boloni, 1997) down to cities (Cheng and Masser, 2004; Li
and Yeh, 2000; Lo and Yang, 2002; White et al., 1997; Yeh
and Li, 2001). In these examples, the classical formalism of
CA has been extended to accommodate the complexity of ur-
ban environments. For example, cities cannot grow indefi-
nitely without constraint and they are governed by both
bottom-up and top-down processes (such as central planning)
which need to be accounted for in urban growth models. While
most current CA models extend the CA formalism in various
ways, they continue to use the raster grid spatial structure to
represent the landscape. While the raster grid is considered
an acceptable generalization for the broader scale models (Be-
sussi et al., 1998) it becomes less appropriate when the spatial
resolution is increased. The use of a regular raster grid in high-
resolution models creates areas of assumed homogeneous land
use that may contain variability in reality. As the resolution in-
creases, subdivisions, city neighbourhoods, and individual
land parcels can be identified, all with irregular size and shape.
If a regular grid were used to generalize across these land
units, the data represented would be manipulated as a result
of the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) (Openshaw,
1983, 1984). The MAUP occurs when the boundaries of spa-
tial units used for data aggregation are changed and result in
different patterns for the same underlying data. White and En-
gelen (2000) suggest using an irregular spatial framework to
overcome this problem.
This study proposes iCity, a GIS-based tool that builds upon
CA theory to predictively model urban growth using an irreg-
ular spatial structure, high-resolution spatial data at the cadas-
tral level, and a high temporal resolution. iCity was developed
as an ArcGIS software extension to demonstrate how a com-
mon desktop GIS can be used to help enhance the existing
range of urban planning software tools. It is currently at the
proof-of-concept stage but presents a stepping-stone for the in-
corporation of irregular spatial structures in GIS-based CA
spatial decision support systems.
1.1. Irregular CA
Couclelis (1985) suggested using an irregular lattice in CA
modelling and Tobler (1995) proposed a resolution element
resel-based GIS approach for analysis of irregular census
units with standard spreadsheet software. The resel method
could be adapted to run very simple irregular CA, but lacks
a graphical display method and has no means by which to de-
fine a standard neighbourhood. Moore (2000) builds upon
Toblers work and proposes a number of resel filtering and
weighting methods for use with resel image analysis and
processing.
The few examples of irregular CA all use Voronoi polygons
or the related Delaunay triangulation to divide space. Voronoi
polygons divide space into regions surrounding objects such
that any point in an objects polygon is closer to that object
than to any other object, while Delaunay triangulation is a tri-
angulation of the points in a Voronoi diagram where the cir-
cumcircle of each triangle is an empty triangle (Boots,
1999). The CA extension of Shi and Pang (2000) and Pang
and Shi (2002) used Voronoi polygons in order to model dy-
namic topological relationships. Objects sharing Voronoi poly-
gon edges were considered neighbours and could affect each
other through the transition rules. The work of Flache and
Hegselmann (2001) on migration and influence dynamics
concluded that some implications of their CA model became
apparent only after using a randomly generated irregular spa-
tial structure. Both Flache and Hegselmann (2001) and Pang
and Shi (2002) use the Voronoi spatial structure of dividing
space into irregular units, however, the resulting polygons do
not represent useful units such as cadastral land parcels or
urban administrative areas such as postal code areas or census
tracts.
In an urban context, OSullivan (2001a,b, 2002) uses cadas-
tral land parcels as an irregular grid and a graph-structure gen-
erated using Delaunay triangulation to represent the
neighbourhoods in his model of urban gentrification. While
based on useful spatial units, this framework could not be di-
rectly transferred to urban growth modelling as land between
property parcels (e.g. roads, parks, railways, ponds) needs to
be represented and a more appropriate neighbourhood defini-
tion is required.
The lack of applied research using irregular CA is likely
due to the computational complexity of defining irregular
neighbourhoods and the difficulty of representing irregular
spatial units. Therefore, a need exists for tools which over-
come these difficulties when implementing irregular CA con-
ceptual models.
 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
2. Model implementation tools
Model Implementation Tools (MITs) are the software tools
that can operationalize that conceptual models. MITs can be
categorized based on their flexibility and ease-of-use (Stevens
et al., 2005). MITs that are easy to use often contain hard-
coded logic specific to one conceptual model, thus offering lit-
tle or no flexibility. The Dynamic Urban Evolutionary Model
(DUEM) developed by Batty et al. (1999), White and Enge-
lens (2000) LeefOmgevingsVerkenner (Environment Ex-
plorer) or Lucifer Cellular Automata Simulator (LUCAS)
designed by El Yacoubi et al. (2003) fall into this category.
While powerful tools for their respective purposes, they offer
little to the user whose requirements do not explicitly match
those of the software developers. However, if a users needs
can be met by these hard-coded MITs, they can often be
more cost-effective than the alternatives.
On the other extreme are general-purpose programming lan-
guages such as C, Java, and Visual Basic. These offer the
most flexibility but require that not only the model logic be pro-
grammed, but also that data handling, user interface,
visualization, and analysis functions be programmed, adding con-
siderable cost due to the time and expertise required to use them.
Between these two extremes exists another category of
MIT: specialized modelling environments. These environ-
ments offer the developer one or more tools with which to im-
plement models, including specialized modelling languages
such as those found within SELES (Fall and Fall, 2001),
CAGE (Blecic et al., 2004, 2005), SpaSim (Moreno et al.,
2002), and UrbanSim (Waddell, 2002); Software Development
Kits (SDKs) that allow for the customization of existing soft-
ware using general-purpose programming languages, such as
ArcObjects (ESRI, 2004b, 2005a) and the SDKs included
within GEONAMICA (RIKS, 2005) and the Idrisi Kilimanjaro
GIS (Clark Labs, 2005); and visual model builders such as
Idrisis Macro Modeller (Clark Labs, 2005) and ArcGISs
Model Builder (ESRI, 2004a).
These environments can be further categorized based on
whether they are part of a GIS (e.g. ArcObjects, Idrisis Macro
Modeller, ArcGISs Model Builder) or whether they exist as
stand-alone environments (e.g. SpaSim, UrbanSim, SELES,
CAGE, GEONAMICA). Stand-alone environments have lim-
ited functionality in terms of spatial data analysis and support
only a limited set of spatial data formats but do not require
GIS software to run. They are also currently limited to func-
tioning on a regular spatial structure. On the other hand,
GIS-based environments provide a wealth of analysis tools
and the ability to use a wide range of industry-standard spatial
data formats all within the same environment. The more flex-
ibility given to the user by a modelling environment, the less
the user will benefit from the specialized software (Benenson
et al., 2005).
The cost of obtaining and using a specialized modelling en-
vironment varies widely depending on the tool selected. Orga-
nizations without existing licenses for proprietary commercial
software may want to explore the public domain packages be-
fore investing in expensive commercial software.
763
The proposed modelling tool, iCity, was developed using
a GIS-based SDK and the Visual Basic .NET 2003 general-
purpose programming language. This provided a high level
of flexibility in addition to being moderately easy to use and
enabled the CA model procedures to be very tightly coupled
with the GIS. It should be noted, however, that the compiled
version of iCity falls into the hard-coded MIT category. It is
the method of using the GIS-based SDK and Visual Basic
.NET 2003 that provides the flexibility in model development.
Users wishing to modify the model logic within iCity for their
needs would be required to modify the source code or create
additional modules and recompile iCity.
3. The iCity prototype
The iCity prototype was developed to explore how a recently
updated GIS software package can be used for integrating
a high-resolution irregular CA modelling approach with
a common desktop GIS to aid in the urban planning process.
According to iCity, an urban area is divided into discrete
land-use units based on cadastral parcel lines. The land uses
include residential (low, medium, and high density), commer-
cial, road, greenspaces e park, greenspaces e other, industrial
(light and heavy). Each cadastral parcel is also given an attri-
bute representing its level of development from fully undevel-
oped to fully developed land. The user inputs spatial data
representing the current land uses of an urban area and future
neighbourhood designs. In addition, a number of parameters
are entered such as the areas population and growth rate. At
each discrete unit of time, called a growth stage, a parcels level
of development will either remain the same or be incremented
by one stage according to a set of user-input parameters.
An overview of the model implementation is presented next
followed by an examination of the conceptual model from the
users viewpoint.
3.1. Implementation
3.1.1. GIS-based SDK
The GIS used to implement the model was ESRIs ArcGIS 9
(ESRI, 2004a). ArcGIS was selected due to its well-docu-
mented ArcObjects libraries and SDK (ESRI, 2004b, 2005a)
as well as its wide use in municipal governments where
such models are likely to be used. ArcObjects provides appli-
cation programming interfaces (APIs) that allow a model de-
veloper to programmatically access ArcGIS to automate
repetitive tasks and extend its functionality using third-party
Component Object Model-compliant (COM-compliant) pro-
gramming languages such as Visual Basic .NET, C, Java,
or Python (Fig. 1). Because ArcObjects are the same software
libraries on which the ArcGIS suites of applications are built,
any function available in ArcGIS can be implemented pro-
grammatically through ArcObjects.
This approach offered three major benefits. First, the soft-
ware developer was relieved from many programming tasks as
the majority of software classes needed had already been cre-
ated. ArcObjects is divided into dynamic link libraries (DLLs)
764 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
Fig. 1. The three main components of a GIS-embedded CA model such as
iCity.
containing groups of software classes representing the different
components of the ArcGIS suite. For example, the geodatabase
library contains object classes representing a wide range of tac-
tile components such as a featureclass, a feature, and a field.
These each have a number of methods and properties that can
be used to read, write, or manipulate data contained in feature-
classes, features, or fields within the GIS (Fig. 2).
Second, these object classes allowed the developer to focus
on implementing the model at a high level which is closer to
the conceptual model. Instead of storing spatial data in memory
using arrays and accessing it by row and column numbers,
the featureclass object, for example, stores the spatial data and
methods relating to a feature class and allowed the program-
mer to search the featureclass to return the specific feature re-
quired. The feature object could then be used to return the
value from a specific field contained within the feature. For ex-
ample, if a featureclass contained the cadastral land parcels in
a city, the search method of the featureclass could be called to
return the parcel feature with a specified ID. In turn, the parcel
features field value method could be called to return the value
from its land use field. In this way, the programmer ac-
cesses data, as well as user interface, geoprocessing, and other
software components in a manner analogous to how it would
be done manually through the GIS. This aided the software de-
veloper in translating a set of manually performed steps into
automatically executed code.
Third, ArcObjects allowed the model to be very tightly cou-
pled with the GIS. While loosely coupled models require the
Fig. 2. Objects, methods, and properties in ArcObjects.
model to pass data between the GIS and the model software
by writing output to disk, a very tightly coupled approach al-
lows the model to directly access and manipulate any spatial
or attribute data that ArcMap has open in memory. For exam-
ple, the developer avoided the need to write file handling rou-
tines to open the various software-specific spatial file formats
from disk, instead of simply accessing the layers directly from
the GIS regardless of the file format used to physically store
the data on disk. This increases performance as potentially
complex data conversions and associated physical disk writes
take longer than accessing data in their current format and
alleviates the developer from some programming tasks. While
this improves efficiency in areas such as data handling, optimi-
zation in other areas is not always possible due to the hidden
nature of the code contained within the ArcObjects libraries.
3.1.2. General-purpose programming language
While ArcObjects can be accessed using any COM-compli-
ant programming language, the choice of which language to
use is usually made based on the experience of the developer.
In a model such as iCity where most of the code executed is
from within the ArcObjects themselves, there is little perfor-
mance gain in using a traditionally faster language, such as
C, over a slower one, such as Visual Basic (ESRI,
2004b). Using a language that is already known to the devel-
oper will eliminate the need to learn a new language unneces-
sarily but may also constrain the developer to using a language
not specifically suited to the task. For an advanced developer
or for a model that relies on its own code more than the GISs
pre-built functions, selecting a language more suited to the
task should be considered.
For new software developers, however, there is an advantage
to selecting one of the versions of the Visual Basic programming
language. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is built-in to Arc-
GIS and requires no external development environment. As a
result, the majority of users contributing code to the ESRI
Developer Network (ESRI, 2005b) online community do so
using the Visual Basic for Applications language or the related
Visual Basic 6 or Visual Basic .NET languages (the latter two
require an external development environment). This has resulted
in a wealth of code samples and highly active user-driven support
forums. Due to the complexity of ArcObjects, it is often helpful
to seek advice from other users or search the user forums to see if
a solution to a similar problem has previously been posted.
While the solutions to many problems will be similar in any
COM-compliant language, most solutions are posted in the
Visual Basic context and therefore can be taken directly without
the need for translation. It should be noted that both the VBA and
VB 6 languages face a number of limitations when compared to
the more recent VB.NET language. These limitations should be
considered even by new software developers.
3.2. Conceptual model
The iCity model is designed to allow planners, developers,
and other stakeholders to simulate and visualize urban growth
 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
at the cadastral land-parcel scale given different neighbour-
hood designs and under various growth rates, density scenar-
ios, and resident preferences. The cadastral land-parcel scale
was chosen because the boundaries between dissimilar urban
land uses typically coincide with cadastral boundaries. Data
at this level are also readily available from municipal GISs
in vector format. Due to the high spatial resolution of the
GIS data used, the model also uses a high temporal resolution
to acknowledge the different lengths of time it takes to convert
undeveloped land into different urban land uses. A temporal
resolution commonly used in urban CA models typically
divides time into yearly time steps whereas iCity can use
a high temporal resolution such as week or month.
The following sections explain the conceptual model from
the point of view of the user. First, the various components of
the user interface are presented followed by an explanation of
how they contribute to the proposed model. The user inter-
face is made up of two components: the iCity Model Param-
eters window and the Standard ArcMap window (Fig. 3). The
spatial land-use layer is loaded into ArcMap using its File
menu or Add Data button and then the Model Parameters
window is opened by clicking on the iCity icon on the Arc-
Map toolbar. The Model Parameters window consists of
four tabs, each used for a different class of parameters: global
parameters, residential, commercial, and park. Only land uses
that the model assigns to cadastral parcels have parameters
associated with them. The parameters entered in each of these
tabs are summarized in Table 1 and explained in the sections
below. Once the parameters have been entered the model is
run using the Run Model button. Updates to the models sta-
tus are displayed in the ArcMap status bar giving visual cues
as to the models progression and speed, and the changing
states of the landscape are displayed in ArcMaps Data
View window.
Fig. 3. ArcMap graphical user interface (GUI) with the iCity Model Parameters window. File management and visualization is contained in the Standard ArcMap 9
window while the model parameters are entered in the iCity Model Parameters window. The Standard ArcMap 9 window depicts the initial state (t 0 months) of
the study area.
765
3.2.1. Global parameters
The global parameters tab has six options (Table 1). A pull-
down menu allows the user to select which currently loaded
layer contains the land-use polygons. The user then selects
the field within this layer that contains the attribute data repre-
senting each polygons land use. The initial population of the
area is entered followed by the citys monthly or annual growth
rate and finally the number of iterations and the filename for
each iterations output is supplied. Each model iteration repre-
sents one growth stage which is the smallest unit of time the
model can represent. Depending on the needs of the user, the
real-world time (e.g. one week, one year) can be chosen as vari-
able but must be defined in accordance with the transition rules.
In this study, one month is chosen as the smallest temporal unit
and is represented by one growth stage.
3.2.2. Residential land-use parameters
The residential parameters are divided into two parts: resi-
dential densities and influence scores (Table 1). The residential
densities parameters allow the user to adjust the average pop-
ulation per unit area for the low-density residential, medium-
density residential, and high-density residential land-use
classes which are used to determine the number of residents
that will occupy each residential parcel. The densities are
determined by the user based on current or proposed residen-
tial population densities. The influences scores are used to
calculate the attractiveness of each residential land parcel
which is used to determine the order in which the residential
parcels will be developed.
3.2.3. Commercial land-use parameters
The commercial parameters consist of three values that must
be entered in order to determine when and if a commercial land
766 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773

Table 1
Irregular CA model parameters
Tab Parameter Description
Global Land-use layer The spatial data layer containing the irregular spatial structure (i.e. land-use parcels)
parameters Field containing the states The field within the land-use layer that contains the cell states (i.e. the current land use)
Citys starting population The population of the study area at the initial time
Citys growth rate The growth rate, either monthly or yearly, of the study area
Number of iterations The number of time steps to run the model
Export path The base filename and path for the model outputs. By default, the model outputs TIFF images of each iteration
JPEG export Selecting this box tells the model to also export JPEG images of each iteration
Residential Res-low The average number of people per square map unit in the low-density residential land-use class
Res-med The average number of people per square map unit in the medium-density residential land-use class
Res-high The average number of people per square map unit in the high-density residential land-use class
Influence scores: park These values are added to the attractiveness factor of residential land parcel j if a park land parcel is within the
specified distance of parcel j
Influence scores: commercial These values are added to the attractiveness factor of residential land parcel j if a commercial land parcel is within
the specified distance of parcel j
Influence scores: light industrial These values are added to the attractiveness factor of residential land parcel j if a light industrial land parcel is
within the specified distance of parcel j
Influence scores: heavy industrial These values are added to the attractiveness factor of residential land parcel j if a heavy industrial land parcel is
within the specified distance of parcel j
Commercial Population threshold The minimum number of residents within a radius of d map units that must be satisfied in order for the
commercial parcel to begin development. This ensures the commercial land parcel has a market
Neighbourhood distance The radius of d map units used in conjunction with the population threshold above
Maximum commercial land per The maximum amount of commercial land per 10,000 residents within the neighbourhood distance of d map
10,000 residents units. This acts as a saturation level at which additional commercial land would over-saturate the market
Park Population threshold The number of residents that must be present within a neighbourhood distance of d map units in order for the park
to begin development
Neighbourhood distance The radius of d map units used in conjunction with the population threshold above

parcel will be developed: the population threshold, neighbour-
hood distance, and the maximum commercial land per 10,000
residents (Table 1). The population threshold specifies the min-
imum number of residents that must be living within the neigh-
bourhood distance of d map units before the commercial parcel
begins development. The maximum commercial land per
10,000 residents is calculated within the neighbourhood area
of d map units. These parameters ensure that a sufficient market
exists for a commercial land parcel and that the market will not
be saturated and should be determined by the user based on mar-
ket conditions specific to the area modelled.
3.2.4. Park land-use parameters
The parks tab has two parameters which determine if and
when a park will begin development: population threshold and
the neighbourhood distance (Table 1). The population thresh-
old determines the number of people that must be living within
a neighbourhood distance of d map units from the park before
it starts developing. Generally the population threshold and
neighbourhood distance will be small assuming that a park
will begin developing when development occurs in its imme-
diate vicinity.
3.2.5. Sub-models
The user-input parameters presented above are used by
a number of sub-models to simulate the growth. The decision
structure of these sub-models is presented on Figs. 4 and 5,
and explained below.
3.2.5.1. Global sub-model. The global sub-model calculates
a population forecast for the population p at growth stage
(t n). This is defined as
ptn pt gn 2
where t is the current growth stage, n is the number of growth
stages it takes to develop the most common residential land
use (i.e. residential-low, -medium, or -high), and g is the
monthly population growth rate entered by the user in the
global parameters tab (Table 1) or converted from the annual
growth rate entered by the user. The population forecast is
used by the residential allocation sub-model when determining
the number of residential land parcels needed to begin devel-
oping at time t. At the end of each growth stage, the population
p for the next growth stage is calculated as
pt1 pt g 3
where pt1 is the population at the next growth stage, pt is the
current population at growth stage t, and g is the monthly pop-
ulation growth rate.
3.2.5.2. Residential, commercial, and park allocation sub-
models. The allocation sub-models examine the cadastral
 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773 767

Fig. 4. Decision structure of the model as implemented in iCity.

land-parcel data, which include both current and proposed par- parcels already under development and begin developing the
cels, to determine which undeveloped parcels will begin devel- new parcels.
opment at the current growth stage. The allocation sub-models The residential allocation sub-model is divided into two
then increment development by one growth stage for those parts. First, it calculates attractiveness scores for each
768 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773

Fig. 5. Flow chart of the conceptual approach to the calculation of residential parcel attractiveness scores (aj). This figure is an expansion of the Calculate
Residential Parcel Score operation in the Residential Allocation section of Fig. 4.

residential land parcel that is adjacent to a developed road.
The scores are calculated based on weights given to various
conditions in the parcels neighbourhood, such as its proximity
to park, commercial, and industrial land uses (Table 1). These
weights can be determined by expert groups of planners or by
focus groups composed of residents or developers, or a combi-
nation depending on whose decisions the modeller intends to
simulate. A parcels attractiveness score represents an average
preference of all decision makers consulted as varying individ-
ual decisions cannot be represented by this model. The attrac-
tiveness score a for parcel j is defined as
aj bj c j l j qj r j 4
where bj, cj, lj, and qj are the scores that parcel j receives with
regards to its proximity to park, commercial, light industrial,
 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
and heavy industrial land, respectively, and rj is the score re-
ceived for its adjacency to existing developed or developing
residential land (negative score values can be used to signify
a land use that has a negative impact of a residential parcels
attractiveness). If rj > bj cj lj qj then all parcels adja-
cent to currently developing or fully developed parcels will be-
gin development before any parcels that are not. This can be
used to force the model to simulate the development of resi-
dential parcels contiguously. The land uses in Eq. (4) were se-
lected due to their predominance in the study area; however,
other land uses can be included to suit the composition of
other urban areas.
Second, the residential allocation sub-model begins devel-
oping the number of housing units required to house the
expected future population and assumes that all new residents
will be housed in new suburban developments as opposed to
a portion of new residents being housed in previously urban
areas redeveloped to a higher density. One housing unit can
house one resident, and one land parcel may be considered
multiple housing units depending on its size and type (i.e.
a residential-low parcel will have fewer housing units than
a residential-high parcel of the same surface area). Eqs. (5)
and (3)e(6) define the number of housing units h, that need
to begin development at growth stage t, and the number of
housing units k in a residential parcel j, respectively:
ht ptn  pt  ht1 5 144 km2 (City of Saskatoon, 2005). The study area was se-
kj s j m 6 includes the Saskatoon neighbourhoods of Sutherland, Forest
where ptn is the expected population after n growth stages as
determined by Eq. (2), pt is the current population at growth
stage t, ht1 is the number of units starting construction at
the previous growth stage, sj is the surface area of parcel j,
and m is the average number of residents per unit area for par-
cel js residential land-use type. As each residential land parcel
is developed, the number of housing units supplied by the par-
cel k (Eq. (6)), is subtracted from the number of housing units
required for that time step h. When h  0, residential develop-
ment for that growth stage stops, but if there are insufficient
residential parcels adjacent to developed roads, an additional
road is built and attractiveness scores for adjacent undeveloped
residential parcels are calculated and developed until h  0 or
another road needs to be built. The order in which roads are
developed depends on their Euclidian distance from the Cen-
tral Business District (CBD). Roads closest to the CBD are de-
veloped first. Distance to the CBD is considered a surrogate
for travel time and it is assumed that housing closer to the
CBD is more attractive and will be developed before housing
further away. While this assumption does not apply to many
polycentric cities, it was necessary to make such an assump-
tion in order to test and ensure the model was functioning as
expected in the early proof-of-concept stages of development.
Future work can extend the model logic to model polycentric
cities in addition to monocentric settlements.
By starting to develop residential land to house future pop-
ulation levels, the model attempts to provide sufficient housing
769
by the time the population increases. Once sufficient residen-
tial land has begun development, the undeveloped commercial
and park parcels are developed based on the following simple
CA transition rules:
Commercial: If the parcel is adjacent to a developed road and
if the parcels neighbourhood contains sufficient
population to sustain it and if the parcels neigh-
bourhood is not saturated with other developed
commercial properties, then begin developing
the property.
Park: If the parcel has a specified number of people
living in its neighbourhood, then begin develop-
ing the park.
This process is repeated iteratively until the number of growth
stages specified by the user is reached or until the model runs
out of land to develop.
4. Simulation results
A study area was selected from within the City of Saska-
toon, Saskatchewan, Canada, to examine the model under
the various scenarios. Saskatoon is a mid-sized Canadian prai-
rie city in south-central Saskatchewan with a population of
approximately 205,900 inhabitants and covering an area of
lected due to a current process of dynamic urban change and
Grove, Silverspring, Arbor Creek, Erindale, Willowgrove, as
well as the North East Development Area and the Sutherland
Industrial District. The area is bounded by College Drive to the
south, Circle Drive to the west, and the city limits to the north
and east, and was selected due to the sharp boundary between
the developed suburban land and surrounding agricultural
fields.
The spatial dataset used in the study consisted of the study
areas cadastral parcel polygons in the vector format. Each
polygon contained its zoning designation which was used to
classify the polygons into the land-use classes required by
iCity (i.e. residential e low density, residential e high density,
residential e medium density, commercial, greenspaces e
park, greenspaces e other, light industrial, and heavy indus-
trial). Road polygons and an attribute were added to the initial
dataset to represent a parcels level of development from unde-
veloped to fully developed were added to the initial dataset.
The spatial dataset was stored as a feature class in a personal
geodatabase for use with the model.
The model was examined by generating outputs for three
scenarios: high-density development, medium-density devel-
opment, and low-density development (Fig. 6).
In these simulations, one growth stage is equal to one
month. For the purposes of simulating how far in advance a de-
veloper would begin housing development to accommodate an
expected future population increase, the estimated develop-
ment time for a residential parcel (n in Eqs. (2) and (5)) was
chosen to be six months, a reasonable length of time for
770 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
Fig. 6. Simulation outputs for scenarios simulating low-density, medium-density, and high-density neighbourhood designs.
a developer to build the most common type of residential
house found in suburban neighbourhoods of western-Canadian
cities (represented by the low- and medium-density residential
classes in iCity). Parks had a development time of two months
while roads and greenspace e other (representing boulevards
and grassed areas along the edge of roads) could be developed
in one month as needed. Low- and medium-density residential
parcels took six months to develop whereas high-density res-
idential parcels took 10 months. There were no undeveloped
commercial land parcels in the study area. The initial popula-
tion for the study area was set at 20,800 inhabitants and was
derived from the population of its respective 2001 census
tracts (Statistics Canada, 2002) as the most recent data avail-
able. The population growth rate was set at 1% per year.
These scenarios assume that all new residents place value
on living close to parks and commercial properties, but prefer
not to live directly adjacent to commercial parcels. The influ-
ence scores were set accordingly. The park influence score b in
Eq. (4) is set to the value 2.5 for parcels adjacent to a park,
value 2 for parcels between 0 m and 25 m from a park, value
1 for parcels between 25 m and 100 m from a park, and value
0 for parcels greater than 100 m from a park. The commercial
influence score c is set to the value 0.5 for parcels adjacent
to commercial land, value 1 for parcels between 0 m and
100 m from commercial land, value 0.5 for parcels between
100 m and 250 m from commercial land, and value 0 for par-
cels more than 250 m from commercial land. Due to the lack
of light and heavy industrial land in the vicinity of the study
area, the influence scores for light and heavy industrial land
(l and q, respectively) did not influence the output. An adja-
cency score r 1 was given to those parcels adjacent to an al-
ready developing parcel to encourage contiguous growth if all
other influences were equal. These influence scores were de-
termined based on reasonable estimates of how a residential
propertys proximity to various land uses would affect its at-
tractiveness to a potential resident. The scores are considered
relative to each other and can be in the range of 50 to 50
due to software constraints. For example, a score of 3 for ad-
jacency to park land and a score of 1.5 for adjacency to com-
mercial land would signify to the model that a resident
considers adjacency to park land twice as important as adja-
cency to commercial land. Extreme values for the influence
scores were used when calibrating the influence scores and ad-
justed until meaningful results were obtained. These scores
could be determined using focus groups of potential buyers
or through calibration using historical data. Historical digital
data at the land-parcel scale were not available for this partic-
ular study area.
The residential parcels used as input in the low-density sce-
nario were twice the size of those used in the medium-density
 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
scenario but housed the same number of residents. In this sce-
nario, the low-, medium-, and high-density residential land
parcels contained an average of 0.15, 0.45, and 1.5 residents
per 100 m2 (input as 0.0015, 0.0045, and 0.015 residents per m2),
respectively. When generating results for the medium- and
high-density scenarios average densities of 0.3, 0.9, and 3 resi-
dents per 100 m2 were used for low-, medium-, and high-density
residential land uses (input as 0.003, 0.009, and 0.03 residents
per m2), respectively. The area to be developed was approxi-
mately 1.2 km2.
Model simulation results (Fig. 4) indicate different scenario
outcomes. In the low-density scenario, eight months were
needed before all the parcels had started developing, creating
housing for a total of 955 residents. In the medium-density
scenario 15 months were needed until all parcels had started
to develop, with housing for 1983 residents. The high-density
scenario, consisting of mainly multi-story apartments, required
25 months for all parcels to begin development and was able to
house 5716 residents. All three scenarios exhibited develop-
ment as expected and in a similar pattern, starting adjacent
to the already developed area and moving outwards. The
main difference between the scenarios was the length of
time to begin developing all the units and the number of peo-
ple each was able to house.
5. Discussion
The iCity software can be distributed in two forms. The first
is as a compiled executable. This is the form in which most
users receive software they purchase or download. As a com-
piled executable, the software cannot be modified or changed
and a modeller using iCity will be subject to the limitations of
the hard-coded models. Alternatively, the model can be dis-
tributed as (or with) source code. This allows the modeller ac-
cess to all model logic and user interface code which can be
modified as required. It should be noted that even by distribut-
ing the source code, this still does not allow the modeller to
modify the internal code of the ArcObjects functions that iCity
uses. However, modellers are free to write their own modules
to replace those ArcObjects functions that they consider inad-
equate. Of course, this would require a more in-depth knowl-
edge of programming.
In order to extend the model, the modification of the mod-
ules of source code related to the model logic is needed. Func-
tions for searching the different kinds of irregular
neighbourhoods have already been created and can be called
directly from within the model logic module. Code concerning
file handling, graphical display, and data access need not be
altered. This requires that the model developer has some pro-
gramming knowledge, however, the extent of the program-
ming knowledge need not be to the level of a full-time
software developer. The time to modify small sections of
code will be less than creating all aspects of the model from
the beginning. The programming knowledge required to mod-
ify the model is balanced by the flexibility afforded by it.
To apply the proposed model in other municipalities or
areas, the user need only to change the input parameters
771
from within the graphical user interface, such as the residential
land-use densities and influence scores. If needs required the
modification of the model logic, then the steps described
above regarding the modification of the model logic source
code would need to be followed.
While tight-coupling the model with a GIS offers many ad-
vantages, there are also a number of disadvantages to this ap-
proach. When the GIS software is updated, the
implementation of the API may change. This will limit iCitys
functioning to one or a limited number of versions of the GIS
software. While having access to the source code may mitigate
this problem as the modeller will be able to modify it to fit new
versions of the API, there is no guarantee that similar func-
tions will be available in future implementations of the API,
or the API may have changed significantly making conversion
overly complex. Additionally, the model developer depends on
the GIS software developers when it comes to efficiency of
their components. In order to maintain flexibility in the API,
the available functions may not be optimized for how they
are used in the model. In such a case, the model developer
is restricted to using the un-optimized function or to abandon
the inadequate pre-built functions and create their own. If the
modeller is required to abandon a large number of pre-built
functions, the MIT is nearer to the high flexibility but low
ease-of-use end of the MIT spectrum and the model developer
may be better-off creating a stand-alone piece of software.
Future research is required to take the model logic from its
current stage in a proof-of-concept model to a more robust
logic capable of being used as a part of a spatial decision sup-
port system. Part of this work will include expanding the
model from modelling only suburban residential growth to
also modelling industrial, commercial, and institutional
growth. Currently home buyers perspectives influence resi-
dential growth using factors such as proximity to commercial,
industrial, and park land, but future work can include how this
residential growth will in turn influence the growth of the com-
mercial, industrial, and other land uses. Additionally, iCity can
draw on research into market influences on housing (Wu,
2003) or providing the developers perspective related to the
decision on the urban development (Robinson and Robinson,
1986; Coiacett, 2000). Integrating urban growth with models
that simulate the impact of urban areas on watersheds (Rous-
seau et al., 2005) or on air pollution (Lim et al., 2005; Borrego
et al., 2006) will be mutually beneficial to both the environ-
mental and urban planning fields.
Lastly, an important future step is model calibration. Cellu-
lar automata models are known as challenging to calibrate
(Clarke et al., 1996; Wu, 2002) and some automatic calibra-
tion methods are developed for raster based CA models
(Straatman et al., 2004). However, additional research efforts
and specific data sets will be required to develop calibration
procedures for the irregular CA model.
6. Conclusion
The iCity model proposed extending the traditional formal-
ization of cellular automata to an irregular spatial structure and
772 D. Stevens et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 761e773
embedded the model within desktop GIS software. With its
flexibility and interactivity, the iCity prototype can be used
to form the basis of an urban planning spatial decision support
tool that relies on cellular automata modelling procedures.
Using irregular cellular automata has overcome the chal-
lenges associated with the use of raster data sets in the major-
ity of existing CA modelling tools. It also facilitates the
modelling process by using land-parcel data at the cadastral
scale in the standard vector format commonly found in munic-
ipal GISs.
From an implementation point of view, developing a GIS-
embedded model that is able to take advantage of the GISs
built-in visualization, spatial data handling, user interface, da-
tabase querying, and geoprocessing operations greatly reduces
the overhead of programming the model and allows the soft-
ware developer to concentrate on implementing model logic
and model-specific user interface. From the users point of
view, the very tightly coupled nature of iCity allows the model
to be used in a familiar GIS environment with readily available
data without the need for conversion. For example, an urban
planner would be able to use iCity to generate visual outputs
describing the effects of various neighbourhood designs and
quantify the environmental impacts that may occur in a specific
area. A land developer would be able to determine the most
attractive and potentially profitable areas on which to build,
and a home buyer would be able to visualize how the neigh-
bourhood may look in future years. Additionally, the GIS pro-
vides advanced analysis and cartographic tools which allow
the user to study model outputs further and to customize
model outputs to convey information required for the target
audience.
Further research includes developing an algorithm to auto-
matically construct small urban land parcels out of the larger
parcels found in rural areas. In this way the model could be
used to generate urban neighbourhood designs based on
a set of rule-based design guidelines. The iCity prototype
can also be extended to use 3-dimensional GIS to permit
more intuitive visualization of the stages of urban develop-
ment. This includes heights of land parcels for viewshed anal-
ysis to help determine a propertys attractiveness score.
Building footprints, rather than the parcel outline, can also
be used to depict a parcels stage of development more intui-
tively. The software can also be extended to use standard par-
cel data models, such as the ArcParcel data model, to allow
more rapid integration with existing land-use data sets at the
land-parcel scale.
Lastly, incorporating iCity into the urban planners toolbox
by tightly coupling it to municipal GISs will allow planners
and other city officials to more easily use the benefits of pre-
dictive dynamic urban models and integrate them in collabora-
tive spatial decision making processes.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by a Discovery grant from the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
(NSERC), Canada. The authors gratefully acknowledge the
assistance of Nancy Bellegarde from the Research and Infor-
mation Resource Centre at the City of Saskatoon for providing
the spatial data and zoning information used in this study. We
are also thankful to the three anonymous referees for their
valuable comments.
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