Urban Growth Boundary Analysis

Urban growth boundary (UGB) analysis uses spatial simulation to design and evaluate containment lines that separate land where urban development is allowed from land to be kept rural. Built on the cellular-automata urban-growth tradition exemplified by Clarke, Hoppen, and Gaydos's self-modifying SLEUTH model, it calibrates how a region urbanizes, then imposes candidate boundaries as hard or soft constraints and simulates land conversion forward in time. By comparing scenarios with and without a boundary, the method estimates how much farmland and open space a UGB would protect, how much it would densify the interior, and whether it would push leapfrog development beyond the line.