Urban Morphodynamics Justin Delloye To cite this version: Justin Delloye. Urban Morphodynamics: Reconciling Location Theory and Complex Systems. Geog- raphy. Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique), 2018. English. tel-01847861 HAL Id: tel-01847861 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01847861 Submitted on 24 Jul 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Université catholique de Louvain Faculté des Sciences, École de Géographie Center for Operations Research and Econometrics Urban Morphodynamics Reconciling Location Theory and Complex Systems Doctoral Dissertation presented by Justin Delloye in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Sciences Thesis committee: Prof. Dominique Peeters (Supervisor) Université catholique de Louvain Prof. Isabelle Thomas (Supervisor) Université catholique de Louvain Prof. Marie-Laurence De Keersmaecker (Chair) Université catholique de Louvain Prof. Joe Tharakan (Secretary) Université de Liège Prof. Geoffrey Caruso Université du Luxembourg Prof. Rosella Nicolini Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Dr. Elsa Arcaute University College of London Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium April 2018 Acknowledgements This thesis is the culmination of forty months of intensive research. Forty months of learning, meeting and questioning. This work could not have been carried out without the material support of the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research, which I thank for having provided me with a FRESH grant since October 2014. In carrying out my researches, I had the privilege to be guided by my two co-supervisors Prof Dominique Peeters and Prof Isabelle Thomas. Their complementary expertises and personalities made them a demanding but committed team that any doctoral student would like to have. I sincerely thank them for the freedom they allowed me, for the time they spent at preventing me from making mistakes, and for the energy they put in pushing me to progress. In particular, if I had to be the last PhD student of Prof Dominique Peeters, then I would consider this status with humility and honour. His teachings are a legacy I will try to be worthy of. I would also like to thank Prof Geoffrey Caruso for his role as member of my supervisory panel. I found with him a modern and inspiring approach of urban geography, and I thank him for having helped me to overcome the difficulties he met before me. In the framework of this thesis, I had the opportunity to stay during five months in his research group at the University of Luxembourg. I discovered a vibrating lab, supported by an active community of researchers who warmly welcomed me. I would like to thank them by those words. There I also met Dr Rémi Lemoy, who surprised me with his so particular approach of urban geography. I would like to thank him for the time we spent, together with Prof Geoffrey Caruso, in having concrete or utopian conversations about the research we were working on. Our trio constitutes my best experience of scientific collaboration, and I sincerely hope it was just a beginning. Finally, I would like to thank Prof Joe Tharakan, last member of my supervisory panel. Prof Tharakan confronted me with the rigorous approach of economic theory, whilst remaining at the same time extremely open-minded to the concepts and methods of geographers. I warmly thank him for the long meetings we had, together with Prof Peeters, at defining a mathematical world at the frontier of Economics and Geography. I would also like to thank the two additional members of my thesis jury, Prof Rosella Nicolini and Dr Elsa Arcaute. I can only imagine how hard it should be to get into the logic of such a long-term project, once it is close to the end, and to be asked a formal opinion. But you were to my eyes enriching jury members, confronting me with the weaknesses of my work, and simultaneously providing me with benevolent advice on how to learn from them. It was definitely a pleasure to meet both of you. In that regard, I would like to thank Dr Elsa Arcaute for having accepted to be part of my jury even before we met. Finally, the best supervisors could not have helped me if I have not been in a stimulating, friendly and caring working environment. Thus I must thank, by order of appearance, Jonathan Jones, Arnaud Adam, Sonia Trabelsi, Gaëtan Montero, Adeline Decuyper, Olivier Finance and Madeleine Guyot for having contributed to the happy office atmosphere which made me coming at work with a smiling face. Needless to say, a thesis is such a personal and long-term enterprise that its impact extends beyond the professional sphere. For this reason, my last and most heartfelt thanks go to my fiancée, Nathalie Gundermann. I could not totally protect you from the disturbances of working nights and busy weekends. Yet you did not only handle those situations with a lot of comprehension, but I could feel your care for me growing up each time. Your love has been an essential fuel for me in making this thesis. In order to avoid running out of space, I will close these acknowledgements by thanking my parents, my family, my friends and all those who have contributed in any way to helping me to complete this project. Thank you. iv Contents I Introduction and background literature1 1 Introduction3 1.1 Context: models and policies...................4 1.2 Motivation: urban models in support of urban planning....6 1.3 Objective and outline of the thesis................ 10 2 Quantitative Theories of Urban Geography 13 2.1 Early developments of Location Theory............. 14 2.2 The heritage of Location Theory................. 18 2.2.1 Urban Economics...................... 19 2.2.2 New Economic Geography................. 25 2.3 Complex Urban Systems...................... 28 2.3.1 Social Physics and Spatial Interaction Models...... 29 2.3.2 Complex Systems...................... 31 2.4 An integrated perspective..................... 35 II Geographical Complexity in Urban Economics 41 3 Scaling Profiles of Monocentric Cities 43 3.1 Introduction............................. 44 3.2 Background............................. 45 3.3 Theory: the Alonso-LU model................... 47 3.3.1 Monocentric cities with non-housing land uses...... 48 3.3.2 Scaling urban profiles................... 54 3.3.3 Inter-urban analysis.................... 57 3.3.4 Functional form....................... 60 3.4 Empirics: European profiles.................... 63 CONTENTS 3.4.1 Housing land profile.................... 63 3.4.2 Population density profile................. 65 3.5 Discussion on urban 3D morphology............... 72 3.6 Conclusion............................. 74 4 Morphodynamics of Non-Monocentric Cities 77 4.1 Introduction............................. 78 4.2 Two-dimensional non-monocentric cities............. 80 4.2.1 The Fujita-Ogawa model................. 80 4.2.2 Circular urban configurations............... 85 4.3 Two-dimensional non-circular cities................ 88 4.3.1 Simulated configurations.................. 91 4.4 Knowledge spillovers........................ 98 4.5 Discussion.............................. 104 4.6 Conclusion............................. 106 III A Synergetic Approach of Location Theory 109 5 A Synergetic Model of Dynamic Discrete Choices 111 5.1 Introduction............................. 112 5.2 Terminology............................. 113 5.3 Individual dynamics........................ 114 5.3.1 Nested decisions...................... 115 5.3.2 Decision rates and transition rates............ 118 5.4 Collective dynamics........................ 121 5.4.1 Aggregation procedure................... 121 5.4.2 Transition probability function.............. 125 5.5 Empirical perspectives....................... 129 5.6 Conclusion............................. 133 6 Noise-Induced Transitions in Core-Periphery Models 135 6.1 Introduction............................. 136 6.2 A dynamic footloose entrepreneur model............. 137 6.3 Stochastic discussion of equilibria................. 140 6.3.1 Equilibrium stability.................... 142 6.3.2 Equilibrium selection.................... 143 6.4 Application: Dynamic Trajectories................ 145 6.5 Conclusion............................. 150 vi CONTENTS IV Concluding Remarks 153 7 Towards an Urban Morphodynamic Theory 155 7.1 Contributions to an emergent formalism............. 156 7.2 The challenges of an operational urban morphodynamic theory 159 V Appendices 163 A A Model of 3D Built-Up Morphology 165 A.1 Model................................ 166 A.2 Preliminary results and discussion................ 173 Bibliography 179 List of Figures 222 List of Tables 224 vii “Mais, moi, j’ai sans doute un peu plus voyagé, dit sèchement Humboldt. Et il lui assurait qu’il existait des rues plus pouilleuses encore. C’était une grande erreur de s’éloigner comme il l’avait fait lorsque tant de gens se réunissaient, des gens avec lesquels on pouvait mettre en place des projets. Des projets, aboya Gauss. Des bavardages, des plans, des intrigues. Des palabres avec dix princes et cent académies jusqu’à ce qu’on obtienne l’autorisation de planter