Abstract
Urban expansion is considered to bring a substantial impact on the environment including biodiversity and climate change. In this study, we develop an urban spatial model incorporating the housing sector, and apply it to about 3,600 cities all over the world. This model is based on the monocentric-city model by Alonso, but it separates the land market and the floor market. Using the global data of urbanized area, we start with inversely estimating transportation costs for each city. Then, setting a socio-economic scenario over a long-term period, we forecast urban expansion in conjunction with utility of local residents by 2050. We particularly examine the sensitivity of urban expansion to housing productivity improvement and transportation cost reduction. As a result, we found that population growth has a substantial impact on urban expansion, in which, while housing productivity improvement would restrain urban expansion, transportation cost reduction would overwhelmingly accelerate the expansion.
