ABSTRACT
Decision Support..........................................................................................199 12.4 Conclusion....................................................................................................206 Acknowledgments..................................................................................................207 References..............................................................................................................207
Simulation-based spatial modeling is an expanding area of research that has a lot of potential for the evaluation of the socioeconomic and spatial effects of major developments in the regional or local economy. Among the most crucial issues that concern policy makers is the prediction of the effect of alternative policies in the short term, as well as in the long term. There is a long history of modeling work in geography and regional science that focuses on the assessment of the various shortand long-term effects of major socioeconomic regional or local developments. As Wilson [1] points out, cities and regions are extremely complicated and can be seen as complex spatial systems. A regional socioeconomic system comprises several subsystems that interact with each other through socioeconomic and spatial mechanisms [2,3]. In addition, components of cities and regions are systems that involve a large number of interacting components [1]. It can be argued that the main subsystems that make up an urban economy are as follows [2,3]:
