A Spatial Interaction Model to Assess Urban Scenarios and Policies in Almelo – the Netherlands

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop an urban decision support system to assess the complexity of the impacts that result from urban policy measures and outside driven shocks in the economic dynamics of a region. This is performed by the development of a spatial interaction model that was coded and integrated in MATLAB 2013a as a user-friendly tool that supports both model calibration and simulation functions, unlocks spatial constraints regarding matrix operations, speeds up the iterative processes and allows the export of outputs to spreadsheet format for further analytical and graphical analysis. The model’s attrition parameters are calibrated until the model average costs are similar to real average costs, and bidrents are calculated according to the offer and demand for space in each zone. Data respective to employment, population and real average costs in Almelo territory was collected for six different municipalities. An external zone was added to act as a buffer for the model. Four different future scenarios regarding new allocations of basic employment and space for employment and/or population in these zones are conceptualized with the Shell Method. Differences between status quo and hypothesized scenarios in terms of residence-employment and population-services interactions  are  assessed and bid-rent variations are calculated to determine the impact of each future scenario in the dynamics of a region. The spatial interaction model has ultimately proven its usefulness and effectiveness in accurately predicting the outcome of future scenarios and policies on the local economy and its respective spatial structure and dynamics. A future combination of the developed spatial interaction model with a land use aspect and subsequent integration with specialized geographic information system tools might prove itself as a milestone in the field of impact measuring methodologies for efficient spatial planning.