Using Spatial Microsimulation to Derive a Base File for a Spatial Decision Support System

This chapter describes how a spatial microsimulation method could be used as input in a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) to provide simulations for planners and communities, showing what their community might look like given different economic, social and demographic parameters and constraints. We find that spatial microsimulation models can be used to create the synthetic person-level base file that can then be used by the SDSS to project potential future scenarios. The advantage of using spatial microsimulation to create the base file is that it can include other variables through imputation or statistical matching techniques based on the individual-level data. The SDSS with a synthetic population from a spatial microsimulation model can implement a number of complex boundaries, including physical boundaries, environmental boundaries and economic boundaries. Further, indicators like educational attainment, income and household type can also be projected, allowing for complex simulations of potential futures for a city under different scenarios.