A case study in digital government - Developing and applying UrbanSim, a system for simulating urban land use, transportation, and environmental impacts

The UrbanSim project provides a case study in Digital Government, and this article examines progress to date in developing and applying the system in a range of metropolitan areas. Digital Government is meant here in the context of an innovative, cross-cutting initiative of the National Science Foundation. The project integrates academic research on urban simulation modeling and policy evaluation with research on human-computer interaction and software engineering, and uses a value-sensitive design to ensure that the system addresses the needs of governments and citizens. This article addresses the importance of the problem domain and the project objectives, presents a range of challenges, and outlines the design and application of UrbanSim in response to these. It discusses issues arising in the application of the model in the Salt Lake City metropolitan region, where a lawsuit over a highway project has precipitated use of UrbanSim to assess the interactions of transportation, land use, and environmental outcomes, and concludes with an assessment and directions for future research.