CELLULAR AUTOMATA IN URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Urban planning is a complex process as urban system is the resultant of interactions between its subsystems. Knowing future projection of physical urban development can play a vital role in successful urban planning and development. Therefore, it is important to have a good understanding of the interactions between urban system components to correctly predict future urban growth. This paper proposes the Celullar Automata (CA) model to predict the future of urban development. Due to shortcomings of traditional modeling methods which are generally static, linear and are based on simple systems theory, it is expected that the proposed CA model which is dynamic and nonlinear will provide better understanding of the urban system and provide better prediction of urban growth.