Abstract for: Urban Modeling Traditions: A Literature Review on Methods and Applications

Cities are complex systems with interconnected economic, household, transportation, infrastructure, and environmental subsystems, where interventions in one domain cause cascading effects. Past modeling approaches in complexity science, economics, and land-use-transportation models have often operated in isolation. To better inform policy and capture cross-sector feedback, integrated models are essential for understanding urban growth, decline, and the unintended consequences of interventions. This review calls for comprehensive integration. Employing a pragmatic scoping review, this paper synthesizes insights from diverse scholarly communities on leveraging models for urban systems. Authors searched Google Scholar, JSTOR, and ArXiv for peer-reviewed publications (2000–2025) using Boolean strategies and AI-assisted queries. Focusing on dynamic, quantitative model-informed approaches, the review outlines dominant methodologies, convergences, divergences, and practical recommendations to enhance urban policy design across interdisciplinary fields. To varying degrees, complexity science, SD, economics, land use and transportation, and urban sustainability models account for interdependencies within urban systems. Research communities vary significantly in model boundary, aggregation level, data reliance, and stakeholder engagement. Future work should cautiously expand model boundaries, balance model detail with clarity and performance, prioritize empirical calibration for credibility and strategically enhance stakeholder involvement to ensure policy relevance. Fragmented modeling traditions hinder the ability to capture urban connectivity which is essential for effective policy design. Interdisciplinary integration, empirically grounded models, stakeholder engagement, qualitative insights, and scenario analysis are key for any future urban modeling endeavors that aim to support comprehensive, realistic, and actionable urban policy design. Assistance with literature search, editing.