Using Survey Data to Develop Agent-Based Models of Spatial Segregation

Inner-urban ethnic segregation processes depend on the distribution of neighbourhood preferences. These preferences are not constant among either the native or the immigrant population. Most studies refer to the segregation model developed by Schelling (2006). The model implies that actors are not aware of the consequences of their individual decisions. In this short paper, the process of ethnic segregation was modelled. For this purpose, an inner-city neighbourhood was assumed whose neighbourhood preferences on ethnic composition are based on empirical distributions. This addresses a problem of previous models, which assume that all actors have the same preferences. In addition, the behavioural assumption has become more complex, as not only a certain number of actors of the same group, but also of the foreign group must be present in the neighbourhood. This was done in two steps. Empirical distributions were used to derive which distributions exist in the population and, in the second step, these distributions were implemented in a model in Netlogo. It can be shown that by using a minimum number of agents from another group in the neighbourhood, the model no longer converges on its own.