AN EMPIRICAL AGENT-BASED MODEL FOR RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION, CASE STUDY: TEHRAN

Abstract

Residential segregation as a known consequence of rapid urbanization in developing countries is a complicated socio-economic phenomenon. Quantified description, analysis, and prediction of urban dynamics as a complex system have always been challenging issues. The recent intensive developments of multi-agent simulations as a solution to these problems still lack enough real-world examples. Our purpose in this research is to develop a spatially explicit model of residential segregation in urban space which accounts for a specific city’s infrastructure. The proposed agent-based simulation of the residential dynamics of Tehran over a 20-year period between 1996 and 2016 is based on the GIS datasets provided by Tehran Municipality and the Statistical Center of Iran. This is the first effort at presenting an agent-based model for Tehran’s residential segregation. We revised the “Schelling” segregation model in an attempt to customize it and arrive at an acceptable fit for Tehran. In addition to Schelling’s parameters, which comprise purely social factors, we identified several important socio-economic and spatial-environmental criteria, in turn categorizing them based on the AHP method. A certain number of the parameters like “neighborhood prestige” specifically belong to Tehran and are suggested for the first time. The proposed expert-based model was implemented in Netlogo. Validation of the resulting pattern using the Kappa indicator showed that the model simulated Tehran’s segregation pattern at a rate higher than 62%.