Using Models to Explore Possible Futures (Contingency and Complexity)

What Is Emerging? Understanding Urbanisation Dynamics in BRICS Countries Through a Geographical Approach, the Case of Russia and South Africa

“…The second mechanism is the Fixed Costs one, which excludes small and isolated cities from the network of urban interactions. This simulated process reflects the challenges of many shrinking cities of the far North and East which have struggled since the end of subsidies on a location and climate that was not suited for profitable (or enjoyable) living (Kontorovich, 2000;Cottineau, 2017), some of these cities having been developed through the work of prisoners and/or komsomol enthusiasts. Finally, Redistribution seems to explain to a lesser extent post-Soviet urban dynamics, but not the Urban transition or Bonus mechanisms.…”

“…Similarly, the relation between the hierarchy of cities and the total urban population has only been approached through the lens of growth, around the question: are (growing) urban systems evolving towards more differentiation and city size unevenness? With the case of Russia, we have shown that a model that reproduces well the growth trajectory of cities could also simulate their shrinkage, in both the directions of a hierarchisation or a dehierarchisation (Chérel et al, 2017). Therefore, such models need to be explored in order to understand how urban shrinkage unravelled in post-transition Russia, so as to provide tools to analyse and project demographic shrinkage in other countries, such as Japan, Germany or China.…”