| Dispersed residential development has been a conspicuous feature of recent population migration to the intermountain West. This low-density settlement pattern has significant implications for land use planning issues such as loss of habitat and agricultural land, and demands on local government for infrastructure and services. Many of the models used to explain urban development are not well-adapted to low-density land markets. Since the 1960s, urban economic theory has emphasized the journey-to-work as the primary determinant of urban locational pattern. Recent empirical research on exurban development, however, focuses on other factors such as household preference for natural amenities and large lots, new technology, and retirement trends. Agent-based models (ABM) have the potential to be a powerful tool for simulating dynamics in exurban land markets. While ABM techniques have recently been applied to a variety of problems of land use/cover change, there have been relatively few applications of this approach in exurban areas. This research builds on agent-based urban-rural fringe land use models (Irwin, 1998), regression-based land conversion policy models (Muller et al., 2002), and a pilot study of exurban land development (Yin and Muller, 2002). I investigate patterns of exurban residential development underway in the American mountain West, and model exurban sprawl as a product of interactions around amenities, density, and accessibility. Simulation results suggest the interactive and dynamic exurban development model built in this research represents the land market system at a reasonably high level of accuracy.; Exurban agent-based models also suggest opportunities for policy applications that link natural and social models to simulate the effects of alternative planning regimes. Such agent-based models are important because they enable planners to consider a broader range of possible cumulative or emergent effects of land use policies or market trends. |
