Endogenizing the rise and fall of urban subcenters via discrete programming models

Models that represent the polycentric and dispersed nature of modern cities should be able to account for the rise and fall of subcenters. Based on a review of the programming models applied to urban analysis, five properties are suggested that an adequate model should include. It should: 1 confront the simultaneity between markets for land and transportation services; 2 accommodate the reality of cities as places where externalities and common properties abound; 3 emulate the intertemporal albeit bounded nature of planning and decision; 4 fully exploit principles of economic theory; and, 5 offer computability. We develop a discrete programming model with these five properties, comparing its capabilities with those of previous approaches.