Urban Ecology: A Literature Review

Urban Dynamics with Its Relation to Urban Ecology: A literature Review

Nefel Tellioğlu

Abstract

1. Introduction

Urban areas consist of human settlements with high population density. Urban population in the world has increased up to 3.9 billion from 746 million in 1950. The population of urban areas exceeded the number living in rural areas in 2009. From then, world population is more urban than rural. According to the data of Global Health Observatory in 2014, there were 7.25 billion population living in the world, of which urban population has reached to 3.9 billion (“Urban population growth”, 2014). Today, 54 percent of the population living in urban areas and it is predicted that urban population will grow to 6.4 billion by 2050, reaching

There are industries, housing, and people as the main parts of this system. This literature review covers details of Forrester’s book, the critiques on the book and the question of necessity of adding some excluded environmental components to the urban dynamics to analyze the interactions within an urban system which is both a social and environmental system. Be clearer.

2. Forrester’s Urban Dynamics The growth processes of urban areas are the main issue of the book. Urban areas are considered as a system of interacting industries, housing, and people. The book examines the life cycle of an urban area using the system dynamics methodology.

2.1. System Dynamics Methodology System dynamics is a simulation based methodology which can be used in analyzing dynamics systems. This methodology can be applicable to many fields that have dynamic structure and behavior that change through time. As examples, followings can be considered as dynamics systems: the processes of engineering systems, biology, social systems, psychology, ecology, and all those where positive and negative feedback processes can be

Outputs of the model

As the base run result, it can be seen from Figure 2.1 that urban system stagnates into a high level of underemployed housing and decreasing industry. There are high ratios of underemployed to skilled labor and of declining industry to others. Figure 2.1. Base run result: Life cycle of an urban area

By conducting some scenario analysis throughout the model, Forrester suggests some policies to prevent the undesirable stagnation of urban development. The policies are as following:

-Until the internal population balance is established, there must be a delay of immigration rate.

-Before the deterioration of housing creates an imbalance, city must focus on removal of aging housing.

-Since aging is continuous, the renewal process should be continuous instead of happening in specific times.

-To create job opportunities for the people living in the city, industrial areas should be established to the decayed housing areas.

-City regulations and tax policies should be considered to bring the most needed industries to the city.

-All the regulations must be conducted together to prevent the stagnation of urban