The objective of the Los Angeles – Shanghai Urban Modeling Project is to develop an integrated land use-transportation-ecology model to project urban growth in the Los Angeles and Shanghai urban regions over the next twenty years. The model is a dynamic, spatial general equilibrium model of land use and transportation within a metropolitan region. It is constructed on the basis of the economic theory of competitive general equilibrium and incorporates environmental and physical constraints as well as political and regulatory factors. Our goal is to build a superior planning tool for modeling future urban growth in metropolitan regions using a methodology that is consistent with fundamental economic theory and that can be utilized in the field by planning agencies responsible for comprehensive planning.

We have assembled a team of scholars in the United States and China that brings together unique experience in large-scale urban modeling. The team combines expertise in urban economic theory, urban mathematical programming, geographic information systems, transportation modeling, urban planning, and real estate modeling. The project aims to create a new generation of urban growth models, using Los Angeles and Shanghai as the test regions.

We are developing the models in close cooperation with the government agencies responsible for regional comprehensive planning in Los Angeles and Shanghai – Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and the Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute (SUPDRI). They are providing data and assistance with assembling survey information that is not available through existing data sources as well as policy questions that our model can help solve. In return, the working models will be given to each agency and the team will work with the people responsible for urban modeling in each agency so that they can use the models for planning purposes.

The team has created a GIS–based data platform for investigating a series of questions about the impact of future urban growth and change in Los Angeles and Shanghai. Our goals are threefold: 1) to develop models to predict urban growth, densities, and land use patterns, as well as projections of where people will live and work; 2) to understand how the complex interactions of congestion, environmental quality, crime and other social indicators impact real estate values and in turn how real estate values impact housing affordability, residential location patterns, employment, and shopping patterns; and 3) to compare the impacts of different policies affecting urban development in L.A. and Shanghai and to evaluate the impacts of future growth patterns from the perspective of transportation, urban infrastructure needs, environmental impact, crime, poverty, education, and other social indicators.