Dynamics of spatial structure in French urban agglomerations

P. Allen's intra-urban model applies the bifurcation theory to simulate the evolution of urban spatial structure. Until now, this model has only been tested to simulate plausible fictitious urban structures but its ability to reproduce observed evolutions has still to be tested. We carried out such an application to post-war evolution of spatial structure in a few French urban agglomerations. Many problems were encountered in choosing the data, estimating parameters and calibrating the model. The high degree of complexity of the model raises much theoretical interest but makes calibration rather difficult.