Cellular Worlds: A Framework for Modeling Micro—Macro Dynamics

Abstract

Cellular spaces have recently received a lot of attention in computer science and elsewhere as models capable of bridging the gap between disaggregate and aggregate description. Despite their obvious spatial interpretation, standard cell-space models are too constrained by their background conventions to be useful in realistic geographic applications. In this paper, a generalization of the cell-space principle is presented, based on discrete model theory, and then applied to a hypothetical but fairly complex problem of individual decision and large-scale urban change. The paper ends with a discussion of the wider import of this methodology, which has close links with, among other things, bifurcation theory, cognitive science modeling of individual decision and behavior, and other issues of actual or potential interest to geographers.