Land Market Preferences in Formal-informal Contexts: Urban Segregation Emergent Patterns

The evolution of cities in terms of land use entails complex land market procedures between buying and selling actors. The actors have (1) different underlying motivations to participate in land markets and (2) different preferences towards the land plots’ physical attributes. Motivations and preferences are based on each individual’s experience and expectations which are subject to social, economic and cultural aspects.
In this study, I explore such motivations towards participating in formal-informal land markets in Cairo, Egypt. I abstract these motivations into four observable categories. Further, I propose a quantitative aggregation for such motivations to describe land market preferences. I incorporate such approach in a land use Agent Based Model (ABM) for Cairo, and I run a set of exploratory simulations to understand the complex effect of formal-informal land markets on land use change. The results indicate a set of emerging patterns of socio-economic segregation due to market preferences.