ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 introduces the method for solving a system of linear equations (SLE) and its application in the Garin–Lowry model, a model widely used by urban planners and geographers for analyzing urban land use structure. An ArcGIS Pro tool is developed to implement the Garin–Lowry model in a user-friendly interface. A case study using a hypothetical city shows how the distributions of population and employment interact with each other and how the patterns can be affected by changing travel friction coefficients and various transportation networks. The Garin–Lowry model may be used to examine more issues in the study of urban structure. For example, comparing population patterns across cities with different numbers of ring roads sheds light on the issue of whether large cities exhibit flatter density gradients than smaller cities. Solving the model for a city with more radial or circular ring roads helps us understand the impact of road density. Simulating cities with different road networks (e.g., a grid system, a semicircular city) illustrates the impact of road network structure.
