Modelling firm (re-)location choice in UrbanSim

Over the last decade, low economic growth rates resulted in intensified competition between nations, regions, and towns in trying to attract new firms and inhabitants. In particular, the establishment of new firms has become one of the most vital objectives of governments and public authorities all over Europe. To raise the attractiveness of a region, different instruments have been used: tax reductions, incentives for new establishments, as business destination promotion activities, supply of outstanding infrastructure and public services. On the one hand, this paper investigates effects of different possible options for cantonal and municipal authorities’ intent to attract firms: improvements in transport infrastructure, designation of new building zones, and last but not least tax reductions. These actions have been tested by simulating the decisions of existing firms. The parameters for these simulations have been estimated with a discrete choice model using data of the cantons St.Gallen and both Appenzell as well as Zurich. On the other hand, the paper aims to provide an approach to implement these models in UrbanSim. UrbanSim is a software-based simulation system for supporting planning and analysis of urban development, incorporating the interactions between land use, transportation, the economy, and the environment. At the moment, UrbanSim is adapted to an European context (see the according research project SustainCity, www.sustaincity.eu).

The Zurich case study of UrbanSim

Abstract-- UrbanSim is an open-source software being developed by Waddell and colleagues(Waddell and Ulfarsson, 2004), simulating land use-development in cities based on the choices of households, businesses, land owners and developers, interacting in urban Real Estate markets and with the option to be connected to a transportation simulation. SustainCity is an EU-funded project with twelve European research-institutions1, coordinated by the IVT of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ). Within the project of SustainCity2, UrbanSim is being adapted to European conditions by creation of a European version (UrbanSimE) with new calibration of choice-models and additional models for households, demographics and firmographics. Focus will be on the data-structure in Europe as well as the different behaviour of companies, residents and developers. For this UrbanSim will be used in three case studies: Brussels, Paris and Zurich. Although previous studies have been implemented in all of those region, the previous study in Zurich can be considered as a new set up as it uses another version of UrbanSim. This paper will report on the implementation of this parcel-based version of UrbanSim within the Zurich case study of SustainCity. It will refer to the data acquired and necessary as basis for the simulation, discuss the approach of data preparation through PostGIS and report on the new structure of the data-models defined within UrbanSim. Finally the first results of the UrbanSim runs of the Zurich case study will be presented and compared to the runs of previous versions. Keywords: UrbanSim; Urban Simulation; SustainCity; Zurich case study 02.03.2011

Lebenszyklusmodelle für Unternehmen in der Raumplanung

Im vorliegenden Arbeitsbericht wird das Umzugs- und Standortwahlverhalten der zwischen 1991 und 2005 im Handelsregister der Kantone St.Gallen und beiden Appenzell eingetragenen Unternehmen untersucht. Dabei geht es insbesondere um den Einfluss der Lebenszyklusphasen der Branche sowie des Unternehmens selber

Modelle zur Standortwahl von Unternehmen

Der vorliegende Arbeitsbericht liefert einen Überblick zu den aus heutiger Sicht relevanten Forschungsansätzen zur Standortwahl von Unternehmen und den darin verwendeten Modellvariablen. Daraus wird ein Set von Einflussvariablen mit entsprechenden Indikatoren abgeleitet

Effects and side effects: A micro-simulation study of firm location choice

This paper investigates effects of different possible options for cantonal and municipal au-thorities’ intent on attracting firms: improvements in transport infrastructure, designation of new building zones, and last but not least tax reductions. These actions have been tested by simulating the decisions of existing firms. The parameters for these simulations have been estimated with a discrete choice model using data of the commercial registers of the cantons St.Gallen and both Appenzell covering the years 1991 to 2006. The aim of this paper is to show not only the effects, but also to detect potential negative side effects.The simulation results show, that tax reductions have unrivalled large effects, meaning positive effects in the municipalities concerned as well as negative side effects in adjacent mu-nicipalities. Generally, effects are more intense in regions with a large number of firms al-ready present. Interestingly, due to large positive effects in a specific region, negative side effects can also be identified over long distances in other regions. Especially cities and towns are affected by these long distance effects