Downtown Dynamics, 1st ed. 2020 Agent-Based Social Systems Series, Vol. 16

In urban analytics, ?crowding? implies the spatiotemporal distributional unevenness of people?s stays and flows in middle-scale urban spaces, and has since become an emerging keyword, attracting not only practical interests but  also research interests, especially in the current IoT devised downtown.

This book presents a collection of papers on a series of exploratory studies on the rise and fall of downtowns (Downtown Dynamics), which the author?s group has been working on with the aim of constructing an artificial society that contributes to the planning and management of crowds by developing Agent-Based Social Simulation (ABSS). In particular, the book includes (1) an analysis of 20 years? worth of survey data on visitors? shopping-around behavior for Osu district in Nagoya city, as a representative Japanese downtown, (2) correlation analyses of spatial distributions between Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA) as a ?visibility index? and crowding in middle scale urban spaces, (3) agent modeling of visitors? shopping-around behavior and construction of the Downtown Dynamics Model as an artificial society, and (4) modeling of the vision-driven agent as a ?crowd generator? and its applicability to spatial design and sign layout in urban spaces.

The book also includes a novel research program derived from complexity system science that provides new approaches to Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), social simulation, regional sciences, geo-informatics, and urban planning studies for researchers and graduate students, as well as planning scientists and practitioners such as town managers and planners who are concerned with downtown revitalization. 

Introduction Motivation Purpose and its Potential Methodology and Framework Part I:  Research Program of Downtown Dynamics Ch.1 Visitors' behavior – as the cause of agglomeration of downtown Ch.2 Diversity inside downtown and its dynamism – Fact-findings of a panel survey Ch.3 Research program of downtown dynamics Part II:  Exploring Downtown Dynamics Model  Ch.4 Review of existing studies  Ch.5 Simulation analysis by an aggregation-based shop-around visitor model Ch.6 Exploring downtown dynamics model through gaming simulation Part III:  Downtown Simulation Analyses by Intelligent Agent Approach Ch.7 Formulation of individual-based downtown dynamics model Ch.8 Redundancy analysis of downtown visitors' walk Ch.9 Bounded Rational but Intelligent -- Modeling downtown visitor agent Ch.10 Spatial simulation analyses in ASSA (Agent Simulator of Shop-Around) project  Conclusion  Major implications  Further research program References. 

TOSHIYUKI KANEDA is a Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology. Holding a Doctor of Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, he has served as a special researcher for the JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) and an Assistant Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. A fellow and former chairman of JASAG (Japan Association of Simulation And Gaming), his current research interests include Agent-Based Urban Simulation and Urban Analytics.   

Analyzes 20 years of data on visitors’ shopping-around behavior in a representative Japanese downtown: Osu, Nagoya Explains two modeling studies on ‘redundant’ spatial behaviors of shopping-around agents and vision-driven agents Presents a research program toward an artificial society for modeling downtown dynamics