Modeling the Dynamics of Desakota Regions: Global - Local Nexus in the Taipei Metropolitan Area

Since the 1970s, Asia has experienced rapid urbanization processes, which are distinct from U.S. society, and the direction of Asian urbanization is more strongly affected by economic globalization. The desakota model, proposed by McGee and Ginsburg in 1991, focuses on how internal domestic and local forces drive the specific rural-urban transformation in Asia. However, the McGee-Ginsburg model does not emphasize the importance of globalization on Asian urbanization. To fill the gap, this study develops a GIS-based CA framework based on the desakota model to not only simulate the unique urbanization processes in Asia but also integrate the influence of globalization into Asian urban dynamics. Three approaches are developed in the CA simulation: 1) physical constraints and land-use classification from remotely sensed images in 1993, 2000, and 2008, are incorporated into micro-scale transformation; 2) population dynamics, shifts of economic activities, and foreign direct investment (FDIs), a representative of the impact of globalization, are applied for multi-scale interconnection; 3) the Monte Carlo mechanism is finally introduced to combine the above two approaches and implement the simulation process. The Taipei metropolitan area, a rapid urbanizing region that highly interacts with the global economy in Asia, is chosen to examine this model. The CA simulation model establishes a strong interaction between FDIs, an indicator representing impacts of globalization, and the dazzling Asian urban model. The combination of multi-scale economic factors and micro-scale land-use transformation also reveals how urban growth of the Taipei metropolis in recent years fits the characterization of the desakota model, and how desakota regions, the growth generators, interact with city cores. As a result, the research not only successfully links the influence of globalization with the desakota model and simulates urban dynamics of Asian cities but also provides scenarios of different FDI inputs for governments to better handle urban growth with global impacts under the deep economic recession since 2007.