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Modeling impacts of globalization on desakota regions: a case study of Taipei

Metropolitan Area

Article  in  Environment and Planning B Planning and Design · September 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0265813515605216

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DOI: 10.1177/0265813515605216
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Metropolitan Area
Bing Sheng Wu
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Technological University, 1
Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616

Daniel Sui
Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1361, USA

Abstract
Rapid urbanization in Asia challenges conventional urban models developed in the West in terms
of economic globalization and local development. The new desakota model proposed by McGee
[(1991) Sustainable Science 3: 155–167] and Ginsburg [(1991) In Ginsberg N, Koppel B, McGee
TG (eds) The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transition in Aia. Honolulu: Haxaii Press, p. 27–
46] describes spatial structures unique in Asian urbanization. Although urban morphology is
highlighted, urbanization processes driven by globalization and local economies are not
emphasized in this descriptive model. To elaborate on how economic globalization influences
urbanization processes and shapes unique spatial features in Asia, this study adopts cellular
automata to develop a GIS-based urban model and simulate how foreign direct investments
(FDIs), an important indicator of economic globalization, influence the local economy and the
evolution of spatial structures with various levels of foreign flux. The Taipei case study confirms
that growing FDIs and service activities are key factors stimulating the growth of desakota regions
and the formation of a mega-urban region during the urbanization process.

Keywords
GIS modeling, globalization, desakota, cellular automata, urbanization

Introduction
The uniqueness of Asian urbanization has been discussed from two major perspectives:
spatial structures and spatial processes (Lin, 2001). Unlike the distinct rural–urban
dichotomy applied in traditional urban models, more ambiguous rural–urban spatial

Corresponding author:
Bing Sheng Wu, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk Singapore, 637616
Singapore.
Email: bingsheng.wu@nie.edu.sg
2 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

structures emerged in Asia, leading to the creation of the term ’desakota’, coined by McGee
(1991) to represent them. Desakotas are densely populated rural areas with a mixture of
agricultural and manufacturing activities. These spatial structures are often found between
major cities and located along major road networks. The urbanization of desakotas is
triggered by economic shifts from traditional cultivation to industrial activities taking
place at local levels. Additionally, economic globalization affects Asian urbanization due
to the new international division of labor. Asian governments have been adopting various
economic policies and incentives to encourage investments in secondary activities to boost
national revenues. These incentives and low labor costs in Asian countries have successfully
attracted the attention of transnational corporations (TNCs). Foreign investments and
capital influx to manufacturing are changing the economic structures of Asian countries.
These external factors indirectly accelerate the economic transformation of the local
economies and stimulate the growth of cities and the surrounding desakota areas. Over
time growing desakota areas merge with nearby cities, forming mega-urban regions
(MUR) (Lin, 2001; McGee, 1991). As a result, patterns and processes of Asian
urbanization are interlocking bottom-up rural urbanization with top-down urban
expansion driven by local and global economic factors (Lin, 2001; Wang, 1997; Xie et al.,
2007).
However, the descriptive nature of the model limits its application to local space
economies. The model emphasizes the transition from agricultural to manufacturing
activities in desakota areas, and their contrast with nearby city cores. The influence of
economic globalization on sectoral shifts of local development has not been sufficiently
addressed. As argued by Marton (2002), the penetration of global capital into rural firms
and the desire of these enterprises to expand into international markets are beginning to
have important implications at the local level, including population migration, economic
shift, and spatial restructuring (Ekins and Newby, 1998; Ng and Hills, 2003).
Nonetheless, these studies specifically focus on how secondary industries play a key
role in the economic development and urbanization of Asian cities. With the
increasing service-based investments in Asia (UN, 2013), there has been little
discussion regarding the effect of the growing tertiary industries on local development
and how Asian urban patterns are shaped under the local–global convergence.
Consequently, the interwoven processes of urbanization and globalization in Asia
should be addressed Further.
Moreover, the persistence of desakota structures under changes from manufacturing to
tertiary activities has also not been discussed in the literature. As McGee (1991) questioned,
‘‘are such regions likely to exhibit short-term persistence (up to fifty years), or are they
simply a transitory phenomenon?’’ (p. 19) The answer to this question should also deal
with the economic factors linking local economies and globalization trends.
As a contribution to fill the gap in knowledge of the effects of the links between
economic shifts and spatial restructuring of Asian urbanization, we investigate how
global factors are changing the spatial structures of desakota regions and analyze how
the structure of desakota areas evolves with the economic shift from secondary to tertiary
sector activities. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. After this brief introduction,
an overview of the desakota model is described in section 2. In section 3 we discuss the
effects of globalization on Asian urbanization. In section 4 we define a GIS urban model,
based on cellular automata (CA), to simulate spatial changes of desakota areas. Spatial
restructuring and scenario simulations under different inputs of global factors are reported
in section 5 and conclusions on global impacts and local drivers of the desakota model are
given in section 6.
Wu and Sui 3

The desakota model: an overview

In traditional urban models developed in the West, the rural–urban dichotomy requires an
unambiguous distinction between geographical and sectorial categories (Lin, 2001; Lipton,
1984). Classical urban models, such as the concentric-zone model (Burgess, 1925), the sector
model (Hoyt, 1939), and the multiple-nuclei model (Harris and Ullman, 1945), explain urban
structures and delineate clear boundaries between rural and urban spaces. Industrialization
and centralization drove the formation of these classical urban structures and explain the
rapid growth of western cities. Further, the outward suburbanization of larger cities may link
nearby units and form megalopolises (Gottmann, 1961; Lin, 2001). However, Ginsburg
(1991) and McGee (1991) have argued that the classical urban models are not directly
transferrable to Asian urbanization patterns and processes. Firstly, the rural–urban
boundary is not as clear in Asian urbanization, since densely populated rural areas with a
mixture of agricultural and nonagricultural activities are common. Secondly, expansion of
these areas and the population growth in situ are not driven by suburbanization but by the
local growth of manufacturing. And thirdly, residential buildings and lightweight
manufacturing units exist simultaneously in these areas. Mixed land-use types in these
periurban areas are different from the primarily suburban areas of many Western societies.
Thus, Ginsburg and McGee have advanced the desakota model to deal with the uniqueness of
the urban patterns and processes of Asian urbanization (Ginsburg et al., 1991).
McGee coined the term desakota from two Bahasa Indonesian terms — desa (village) and
kota (town) — to stress the dual nature of urbanization process taking place in small villages
and towns. According to the spatial system proposed by the desakota model (Figure 1), a
MUR contains the following spatial features: major cities and periurban nuclei, formed by
rural-to-urban migration and revealing the spatial distribution of urbanized areas, and
densely populated rural areas where wet rice agriculture is the major economic activity.
Population density in these areas often equals or exceeds the metropolitan densities in
North America (Qadeer, 2000). The settlements located between major cities are termed
desakotas. The emergence of desakota areas has been driven by growing small and

Figure 1. The ideal desakota spatial system (source: McGee, 1991).

4 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

medium enterprises (SMEs) operated by collective (village collectives or multifamilies) or

private (individual families or households) enterprises (Wang, 1997). Daily commodities
such as textiles, footwear, plastics, and leather products provided by SMEs expedite
economic transformation from agriculture to manufacturing in desakota areas. These
labor-intensive firms may also attract surplus rural residents, especially female labor, as
part-time (off-season) or full-time workers. Workers commute between villages and SMEs
using convenient two-stroke motorbikes, enhancing preconditions for rural population
growth (McGee, 1991). Consequently, economic shifts and population growth blur the
distinct boundary between rural and urban areas, as desakota areas act as ’growth
generators’ in Asian urbanization processes (Lin, 2001).
In addition to the general trend of spatial–economic changes, McGee (1991: pages 12–14)
defines three main desakota types according to various levels of economic drivers of the
urbanization processes (Figure 2). Type I means Asian countries, such as Japan or South
Korea, that have experienced a rapid transformation of the spatial economy in terms of a
rural-to-urban shift in population, although agricultural land use may remain quite
persistent. Type II includes countries, such as Taiwan or Thailand, that have experienced
a decline of people in agriculture and a concurrent growth of small-to-medium-sized
industries in rural areas. Type III covers countries, such as China or India, that bear
some spatial and economic resemblance to type II but are characterized by changes that
occur due to high population growth and slower economic growth.

Figure 2. Three types of desakota patterns in Asia (source: McGee, 1991).

Wu and Sui 5

The desakota model captures the sociodemographic dimensions of rapid urbanization

processes and characterizes the periurban fringes of city cores with more intense
interaction between urban and rural processes (McGee, 2008; Sui and Zeng, 2001). It also
highlights how local factors such as economic development, government policies, and
institutional systems stimulate the emergence of urbanizing rural regions (Lin, 2001; Lo
and Marcotullio, 2000; Marton and McGee, 1996; Tang and Chung, 2002). However, this
model emphasizes the bottom-up process that influences the transformation of Asian
settlement patterns but does not explain the drivers that expedite the fast growth of SMEs
since the late 1950s. Further studies have revealed the importance of economic globalization
for Asian urbanization (Douglass, 2000; Marcotullio, 2003; Sit and Yang, 1997). Foreign
direct investments (FDIs) in local economies not only lead to the rapid growth of SMEs but
also result in population migration, economic shift, and spatial restructuring (Ekins and
Newby, 1998; Ng and Hills, 2003). Thus, in addition to the bottom-up process which has
been well illustrated in the desakota model, the top-down globalization process in Asian
urbanization should also be considered.

Impacts of globalization on Asian urbanization

The world economy has experienced fundamental adjustments in production and wealth
accumulation due to the new international division of labor, and has intensified the global
interdependence between developed and developing economies (Douglass, 2000; Lo and
Marcotullio, 2000; Lo and Yeung, 1995). The new international division of labor favors
the relocation of manufacturing from developed to developing economies and increases the
movement of commodities, capital, people, production, and information through space
(Marcotullio, 2003). Economic globalization changes the role of TNCs from the
ownership of low-value-added and labor-intensive segments of production, which is
increasingly outsourced, toward the control of the circulation of finance, industrial inputs,
technology, and commodities (Douglass, 2000). Technology and capital influx from TNCs
have been helping economic growth and industrialization of the developing world, especially
the newly industrialized economies in Asia. Due to technological advancements, including
innovations in telecommunications and more cost-effective transportation infrastructure,
subcontracting and outsourcing from TNCs has become the norm in economic
globalization: an increased proportion of goods is manufactured in Asia and sold
throughout the world, especially in developed countries. As economic globalization
proceeds, TNCs are more influential in the world economy. Cities where TNC head
offices are located, such as New York, London, and Tokyo, gradually become global
cities that control the economic power of the world (Douglass, 2000; Sassen, 2001; Short
and Kim, 1999). Additionally, Asian cities where manufacturing has been relocated also
provide banking and financial services for international transactions and intensive FDI
inflows from developed countries. As a result, a new spatial scope (geographical area of
dominance) is emerging and the role of Asian cities as major regional centers in the world
city hierarchy is also repositioning (Douglass, 2000; Marcotullio, 2003; McGee, 2008).
Due to the formation of this new spatial scope under economic globalization, rural–urban
transformation and spatial restructuring is taking place in Asian cities. For higher-level
functions TNCs have been choosing Asian cities that are regional centers and
manufacturing sites. These cities, such as Taipei, Hong Kong, and Seoul, can provide
banking and financial services and help the international transactions of FDIs and capital
in-flows of TNCs. Economic linkages between these cities and surrounding towns and
villages are also very intense. As addressed in the desakota model, the growth of SMEs is
6 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

also supported by the demand of nearby cities (McGee, 1991). Firms in regional centers
receive manufacturing orders from international investors and look for subcontractors in
local factories. Key infrastructure, such as larger transportation systems and communication
hubs, energy supplies, and distribution networks are well-established in and around cities,
and labor-intensive manufacturing factories in nearby rural areas use them to deliver goods
to cities for exporting to international markets. The interaction between urban and rural
firms helps local suppliers to expand the networks of their firms and hire more rural labor for
international orders. The process also integrates rural and urban businesses and forms new
city–hinterland patterns (Jian, 2004; Marcotullio, 2003; McGee, 2008; Ng and Hills, 2003;
Sit and Yang, 1997). While globalization can shorten social and environmental distances,
local economic development provides opportunities for new areas of specialization and
comparative advantage to attract further foreign investments (Jian, 2004). Since it is
crucial to understand how economic activities affect urban growth under spatial–temporal
compression in Asia (Lin, 2001), the integration of economic globalization (top-down) and
local development (bottom-up) processes on the changes of urban patterns, especially
desakota areas, is essential to elaborate a more comprehensive framework of Asian
urbanization.

Data and methods

Study area — Taipei Metropolitan Area
The national capital and largest metropolitan area in Taiwan, Taipei, serves as the political,
economic, and cultural center of Taiwan. The spatial extent of its urban region covers two
counties and two independent cities: the City of Taipei, the City of Keelung, Taipei County,
and Taoyuan County (Huang, 2008). The area totals 3678 km2, approximately 10% of the
area of Taiwan. According to the estimates of the Department of Household Registration
Affairs, about 9 million people, or 38.6% of the national population, lived in this area in
2011. Restricted by the contrasting landforms, the population distribution is relatively
uneven. Most residents are concentrated in the flatter northwest side, while the rugged
southeast side corresponds to the last spurs of the Central Mountain Ridge, the backbone
ridge of Taiwan, is less populated (Figure 3)
Like most Asian countries, the majority of the economic activities in Taiwan have been
related to agriculture. After World War II, the government gradually replaced agricultural
activities with manufacturing industries. The first phase of this period was termed ’primary
import-substituting industrialization’ (Dicken, 2007) — the government primarily targeted
the growth of light industries so it would be possible to shift from importing to the local
manufacture of basic consumer goods, such as textiles, footwear, plastics, leather, fur, and
allied products. Starting in the 1950s, this policy stimulated the shift from agriculture to
manufacturing and the emergence of SMEs in the countryside, close to major towns and
villages; labor-intensive firms had ideal conditions for outsourcing and provided various
kinds of commodities and industrial components for further assembling. After the success
of the first economic shift and the rapid growth of SMEs, the government started focusing on
export trade policies. During this second phase, generally called;primary export-oriented
industrialization’, the emphasis was on the export of manufactured goods, especially labor-
intensive products (Dicken, 2007). Hence, manufacturing companies became key agents for
the expansion of foreign trade (Liu and Tsai, 1991), and thus from the early 1960s helped
Taiwan to emerge as a newly industrializing country and occupy a role of export processing in
the new international division of labor (Frobel et al., 1980; Hsu, 2005; Wade, 1990). Since
capital flows from foreign investments played a critical role in stimulating rapid
Wu and Sui 7

Figure 3. Geographic location of Taipei Metropolitan Area.

industrialization and economic growth in Taiwan, it was no exaggeration to assert that SMEs
constituted the pillars of Taiwan’s postwar economic miracle (Hsu, 2005; Orru, 1991; Zhou,
1999). Taipei played a major role during these processes for Taipei City serves as a regional
center in East Asia and is surrounded by the three counties that most SMEs are located (Hsu,
2005; Huang, 2008). In its periurban areas, manufacturing increasingly became the sector
leading economic development, while the relevance of agriculture was decreasing. In this
context of national policies related to the global environment, industrialization and
urbanization processes in the Taipei Metropolitan Area can be considered to be
representative of the desakota process identified in other Asian locations.

Data acquisition
In this study two sets of data were acquired for the CA-based urban modeling. The first is a
GIS dataset. One Spot satellite images (year 1994) and two Landsat satellite images (years
2001 and 2008) were applied to identify land-use types in Taipei. DEM (digital elevation
model) raster data were acquired to evaluate impacts of urban growth on land use. Vector
GIS data, including the administrative boundaries and road network, were also required. All
data layers were visualized in Thematic Mapper 2 degree projection. This projected
coordinate system is based on the Transverse Mercator coordinate system and the Hu-
Tsu-Shan datum (Ellipsoid: International 1909). The central meridian is 121o E. False
easting is 250 000 m, and False northing is 0 m.
8 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

Table 1. Demographic and socioeconomic variables in the methodological framework.

Time period Data source

Population at district and county levels Time period: 1991to 2007

Employees by sectors
Foreign direct investments by sectors
Data source: Yearly statistical books of the City of Taipei, Taipei
County, Taoyuan County, and Keelung City Government
Time period: 1991 to 2007
Data source: Yearly statistical books of the City of Taipei, Taipei
County, Taoyuan County, and Keelung City Government
Time period: 1978 to 2007
Data source: The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan (http://
www.moeaic.gov.tw/)

Other datasets correspond to multiscale socioeconomic data (Table 1). National-level

FDI was used as an indicator to reveal how the global economy has affected Asian
urbanization and economic activities. The temporal frame of FDI data for Taiwan was
1978 to 2007. County-level and district-level population data were collected from the
yearly statistic books for the four studied units. The official definition of population in
counties and districts is the number of residents whose households are registered in a
county or district by the end of every year. In the four counties/independent cities there is
a total of sixty districts (twelve in the City of Taipei, twenty-nine in Taipei County, thirteen
in Taoyuan County, and seven in the City of Keelung). The temporal extent of population
data covers 1991 to 2007. Employment data surveys presented the working population in the
primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors, and was used to indicate economic shifts in each
sector. All the multiscale socioeconomic data were collected from yearly statistic books of
the four units for 1991 to 2007.

Methodological framework of CA urban modeling

CA have been widely adopted in urban modeling in the last decade. The rules in CA
modeling have evolved for the purpose of generating complex structures. The basic rules
are formed to detect if one cell is directly affected by surrounding cells. Nowadays,
complicated rules are developed to reveal how various driving factors play key roles in
land-use or land-cover changes. For instance, Li and Yeh (2000) used probabilities as
rules in their CA model to evaluate sustainable urban development. Sui and Zeng (2001)
introduce regression modeling in their CA model to simulate urban dynamics in China.
Other examples, such as Almeida et al. (2005), Dietzel and Clarke (2007), and Feng
and Liu (2012), introduce statistical approaches into CA modeling to generate rules and
simulate spatial restructuring. Recently, the Monte Carlo mechanism has also become
common in CA simulation (eg, Chen et al., 2002; Jantz et al., 2010; Wu, 1998; Yang and
Lo, 2003). Nonetheless, most models are developed according to Western urban theories
without considering the uniqueness of urbanization processes and patterns in Asia. Some
studies adopt the concepts of desakota theory to develop CA-based urban models, but they
focus specifically on local development (Sui and Zeng, 2001) or the global economy
(Xie et al., 2007) without considering the local–global nexus. Since Asian urbanization has
been driven by global (top-down) and local (bottom-up) processes, it is proper to develop
rules and a framework to link global and local factors in CA modeling and simulate changes
Wu and Sui 9

Figure 4. Methodological framework of cellular automata modeling.

in desakota regions. To integrate the above processes into this methodological framework,
three approaches are introduced: (1) multiscale analysis, (2) microscale transformation,
and (3) Monte Carlo models. The methodological framework is shown in Figure 4. In
the urban model, a key element linking global and local factors is population.
Through multiscale processing, global factors can be connected with population growth at
the county or district level. Furthermore, population growth also plays a role in changing land
uses at the microscale level. Additionally, Monte Carlo simulation adopts population as a
factor connecting multiscale and microscale processes to perform CA-based urban simulation.

Multiscale analysis. Desakota processes have revealed that economic shifts lead to population
migration and result in urban change, and the direction of urban change is more strongly
affected in places with strong links to the global economy (Cohen, 2004; McGee, 1991; Seto
and Kaufman, 2003; Xie et al., 2007). To identify how population changes with varying
shifts in economic globalization and local development, five variables at multiple scales are
applied to the process. Employment data broken down by the three major economic sectors,
primary, secondary, and tertiary at county level, are used to represent local economic
changes. FDIs in manufacturing and services at national level are selected to represent the
influence of globalization on Asian economies. FDIs in the primary sector are not considered
due to the steady and extremely low percentage of total FDI input (figure 5). Although FDIs
have certain impacts on the local economy, the relationship between FDIs and the local
economy is not linear (figures 5 and 6). As a result, these five variables are considered to be
independent in the discussion of population dynamics affected by shifts of diverse economic
activities.
To explore the impacts of economic activities on population changes, a stepwise linear
regression model is defined as follows:
 
Popcounty ¼ f Eprimary , Esecondary , Etertiary , FDImanufacturing , FDIservice , ð1Þ

where Eprimary, Esecondary, and Etertiary represent the amount of employees of each
county; FDImanufacturing and FDIservice are the amount (in US dollars) of FDIs at national
10 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

Foreign direct investment (FDI) growth in Taiwan (1978 – 2012).

FDI - Primary FDI - Manufacturing FDI - Service Regression (FDI - Service)

9 000 000

8 000 000

7 000 000

6 000 000
US Dollars ($1,000)

5 000 000

y = 2161.7x1.8944
4 000 000
R² = 0.7661
3 000 000

2 000 000

1 000 000

0
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Year

Figure 5. Foreign direct investment (FDI) growth in Taiwan (1978 – 2012).

level. A stepwise linear regression model is conducted to evaluate if each variable

has independent impact on population changes through a statistical p-value. Thus, not all
economic variables have the same impact on population for every county. The above
relationship can be expressed as a linear regression equation for estimating population at
county level:
X
Est Popc ¼ c þ ic Xic þ "c ð2Þ
i

County population (Est Popc ) is linearly estimated by the ith economic factor (Xic ). The
intercepts (c ) and the coefficients (ic ) vary among counties (c), and "c represents the system
error. Through equation (2), county-level population can be estimated by socioeconomic
data. However county-level population is still too coarse for further analysis in conjunction
with pixel-level land-use development.
The next step breaks down the estimated county-level population into smaller spatial
units, district levels (d). On the basis of annual demographic data, the proportion (!dcj ) of
jth district-level population (Popdj ) in every county (Popc ) can be calculated:
Popdj
!dcj ¼ :100% ð3Þ
Popc

In order to redistribute the county population at district level, the relationship between
the population at district and county level must be defined. Through analysis of annual
demographic data for 1991 to 2008, the proportion of each district population has a
linear trend. Thus, an estimated proportion of the district population in year T ðEst !dcjT Þ
can be computed through a linear regression model, where T is the time period between
year 1991 and year T:
Est !dcjT ¼ jc þ jc :T: ð4Þ
Wu and Sui 11

Figure 6. Multinomial logistic modeling in microscale transformation.

The estimation of the proportion for the jth district is later used to calculate the district
population (Est Popdj ) from the estimated county-level population (Est Popc ) in year T:
Est PopdjT ¼ Est PopcT  Est !dcjT : ð5Þ

The multiscale interaction processes successfully combine population dynamics and

economic activities at various scales, including global. The district-level population can,
therefore, be calculated for each year based upon the national-level FDI data and county-
level economic activities. After estimation of the yearly district population, the population
change from year T to year T þ 1 can be also obtained. The population growth will later be
used to find linear relationships with pixels extracted from satellite images in the Monte
Carlo simulation.

Micro-Scale transformation. The major purpose of the microscale transformation process is to

find when cells representing vacant land change to urban land under certain circumstances.
For the purpose of this study, two land-use types are considered: urban and nonurban. The
definitions of these two categories are as follows:
Nonurban cells: pixels containing no built up structures such as roads, buildings, bridges,
or concrete. In general, nonurban land refers to rural areas. The terms ’nonurban’ and rural’
will be used interchangeably in this study to represent this type of land use. Examples of
nonurban uses in these pixels include farmland, vacant land, mountain, forest, or grassland.
12 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

Urban cells: pixels containing built structures or impervious areas such as factories,
buildings, parking lots, or roads. In addition, trees along roads or parks within city cores
are included in this class.
To extract land-use types in the Taipei Metropolitan Area, one Spot (year 1994) and two
Landsat (years 2001 and 2008) satellite images were used. Three physical constraints were
incorporated in the evaluation of the probability of conversion from nonurban to urban
pixels: (1) accessibility to city centers (CBD), (2) slope, and (3) accessibility to roads. Each
constraint is classified into several groups based on the distance to CBDs or roads and the
degree of slope. A multinomial logistic model is adopted because land-use categories and
physical constraints and socioeconomic factors can be structured as a matrix, and
probabilities of transition from one type of land use to another can be estimated through
the model (Berry et al., 1996; Dendoncker et al., 2007) (Figure 6).
The equation used to calculate transition probability in our multinomial logistic
regression model is shown below [equation (6)]. In the equation, e is a mathematical
constant, and y is the linear regression function composed of several parameters (ie,
different constraints or socioeconomic factors) and reflects land-use changes from
category p to category q. The linear regression of y is shown in equation (7), where  is
the constant intercept and kz is the coefficient of the kth condition of zth variableXz ; " is the
system error.

expð yÞ
Probp!q ¼ ð6Þ
1 þ expð yÞ
X
n
y¼þ kz Xz þ " ð7Þ
k¼1

Land-use changes from rural to urban between 1994 and 2001 are represented as a
dummy raster grid (0 for no change, 1 for change) and overlaid with the three constraint
grids. Then, 20 000 points are selected randomly to show the relationship between land-use
type and the three constraints. All the attributes are stored in a two-dimentional matrix and
used to extract the parameters of the multinomial logistic regression model using SPSS
software. After the extraction of microscale transformation processes, the next step is the
combination of microscale and multiscale interaction processes using a Monte Carlo
mechanism.

Monte Carlo simulation. A fundamental concept in Monte Carlo simulation is to determine if a

cell changes its status based on a random number assigned and the probability generated by
CA rules. From microscale transformation, a transition rule of spatial change from
nonurban to urban land uses is developed by multinomial logistic regression. Since
population growth stimulates urbanization, this implies that urbanized areas are
increasing as the population increases. From the classified satellite images, nonurban and
urban pixels for the jth district in different years can be counted, and pixels that have
changed from nonurban to urban can be also identified and calculated. Thus, the
relationship between population growth and the increase in urban pixels (N) in the jth
district can be defined in the following linear equation:

Njðnon!urbanÞ ¼  þ Popj ðT!Tþ1Þ þ " ð8Þ

Wu and Sui 13

In this equation, PopjðT!Tþ1Þ is population change in the jth district between year T and
year T þ 1, and the corresponding estimated population for the two years is calculated using
equation (5). The next step is to determine if the land-use type of a pixel should be changed
from nonurban to urban. First, a random value between 0 and 1 is assigned to each
nonurban pixel in the classified image (year 1994) to represent the random probability
(Prandom) of change. Second, from the multinomial logistic regression model [equation (6)],
the estimated probability of change (Pc) for each nonurban pixel is also calculated. Finally,
the model selects the top N cells with highest estimated probabilities, and compares Prandom
and Pc for each pixel. If Prandom < Pc, this implies that the nonurban cell has a greater
probability to change its status, and is then defined as converted. If all N cells meet the
criteria (Prandom < Pc), the iteration is finished. If only n cells (n < N) are converted, then the
models selects (N-n) cells with second-highest estimated probabilities, and repeats the
process until a total of N cells is considered as converted to urban. Through this process,
land-use changes (nonurban to urban) from year T to T þ 1 can be estimated and visualized.

Simulation and discussions

The relationship between county-level population and global impacts in the four county-
level units, the City of Taipei (CTP), Taipei County (TPC), Taoyuan County (TAO), and the
City of Keelung (KEE) is shown below:
The City of Taipei:
PopCTP ¼ 2597147 þ 97891:558PrimaryCTP, ð9Þ

Taipei County:
PopTPC ¼ 920846:4 þ 44571:657TertiaryTPC þ 0:016FDIservice , ð10Þ

Taoyuan County:
PopTAO ¼ 459960:5  29500:2SecondaryTAO þ 27722:871TertiaryTAO þ 0:015FDIservice ,
ð11Þ

The City of Keelung:

PopKEE ¼ 143937:9 þ 3381:274TertiaryKEE þ 0:001FDIservice: ð12Þ

The above regression models show that population growth is linearly related to two key
economic factors: economic activities of the tertiary sector and national-level foreign
investments in Taipei County, Taoyuan County, and the City of Keelung. Manufacturing
industries have long played a key role in these counties near the City of Taipei because
commodities and services are provided by these counties for the city core, especially when the
first highway was established in 1978 (Huang, 2008; Tsou and Cheng, 2013). Industrial parks
are established to support manufacturing industries, including furniture, clothing, and
chemistry, and to benefit economic development of these counties. When the City of
Taipei experiences the progress of economic globalization, the service sector becomes
dominant in the city core, and the tertiary sector economic activities in the surrounding
counties also increase significantly due to the increase in foreign investments (Dent, 2003;
Huang, 2008; Wang, 2003). According to The Investment Commission, Ministry of
14 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

Economic Affairs, Republic of China, the tertiary sector FDIs was only 6.61% of the total
FDI in 1980, and the manufacturing sector was 93.3%. By 1990, the tertiary sector had risen
to 37.2% and the manufacturing sector to 62.7%. The tertiary sector reached 77.1% and
manufacturing went down to 22.9% by 2000. The increasing tertiary sector of FDIs triggers
a sectoral shift of the domestic economy and drives the growth of the service sector in local
development (Figure 7). The rapidly growing activities in the tertiary sector of Taipei and
Taoyuan County contain wholesaling, warehousing, retailing, and dining. The combination
of the transportation, wholesale, and storage sector in the City of Keelung is 41.2% of the
total economic activity because it is a seaport city for delivering goods domestically and
internationally. The increasing activities create considerable job opportunities and attract
people from other counties to move into the Taipei Metropolitan Area. In addition, due to
the dense and rapid transportation network between the city core and its peripheries, it
drives rural–urban transformation by a network of linkages that provides a dynamic flow
of people (McGee, 2008).
The classified images for 1994, 2001, and 2008 show that population dynamics influenced
by economic shifts also affect the spatial structure in the Taipei Metropolitan Area
(Figure 8). Since a desakota region is defined as a region that mixes agricultural and
nonagricultural, especially manufacturing, activities, the land-use type should be a mixture
of urbanized and nonurbanized features. Hence, it is not intuitive to define spatial features in
the desakota pattern. This study adopts the measurement of urban density to distinguish the
spatial structures. A 500 m  500 m vector grid layer is created to calculate the number of
urban pixels within each grid in different years and the value for each grid is the percentage
of urban pixels (9). Five classes are generated by the natural break method in ArcGIS to
maximize variations between groups and minimize differences within each group. The
classification results reveal that areas with urban density between 80% and 100% are
major city cores And those with urban density between 50% and 80% are periurban
regions. Areas with urban density between 9% and 29% can be considered to be
populated rural areas and the last group, with urban density lower than 10%, can be
defined as the sparely populated frontier. According to Heikkila et al. (2003), areas with
urban density between 22% and 58% are categorized as desakota regions. Thus, the spatial
structures that have urban density between 30% and 50% can be considered to be desakota
areas. Through the classification process, the pattern of the Taipei Metropolitan Area (9)
mimics the spatial features of the desakota model (Figure 1) and reflects land-use changes in
the past years. Due to terrain restriction, urbanized areas in Taipei County and the City of
Taipei merge to form a big urban region and urban expansion is limited between 1994 and
2008. It also links economic activities and population dynamics between Taipei County and
the City of Taipei (Wang, 2003), except Linko District of Taipei County. The urban
expansion that takes place in Linko is driven by the construction of a transportation
network such as the highway and high-speed railway that link Linko County to the city
core. The transport network shortens commuting time and attracts urban dwellers to move
in due to lower housing prices. Thus, the demands stimulate the establishment of residential
buildings and the expansion of urbanized areas.
Spatial restructuring in Taoyuan County is less influenced by the terrain but more related
to economic shifts. Since the secondary sector plays a vital role in Taoyuan County, the
aggregation of labor-intensive activities in the desakota areas attracts rural residents and
foreign investments in manufacturing for subcontracting and outsourcing. Thus, desakota
areas are found mostly in Taoyuan County and expanded rapidly between 1994 and 2008.
Moreover, through a network of production, industrial goods are developed and exported
via the City of Taipei (Hsu, 2005). The process also creates demands on labor forces and
 Wu and Sui

Figure 7. Population growth and sectoral shift in (a) Taipei (b) Taipei County (c) Taoyuan County and (d) the city of Keelung.
15
16 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

Figure 8. Urbanized areas of the Taipei Metropolitan Area in (a) 1994, (b) 2001, and (c) 2008.The circled
area is Linko District, Taipei County.

spurs the urbanization of desakota regions. Simultaneously, the tertiary sector also changes
the landscape in Taoyuan County due to national policies. Increasing the tertiary sector of
FDI affects the growth of local activities that combine wholesaling, warehousing, retailing,
dining, and storage from 21.89% of total economic activities in 1991 to 26.2% in 2008. The
transition of service activities to become the dominant economic sector requires not only a
labor force but also large areas for storing goods. As a result, with continuous job
Wu and Sui 17

Figure 9. Density of urban pixels(500 m  500 m) in the Taipei Metropolitan Area (a) 1994, (b) 2001,
(c) 2008.

opportunities and demand for land resources, urban expansion in Taoyuan County
continues in towns and their surrounding outskirts.
To examine how service activities from TNCs affect local economic activities and spatial
patterns of desakota regions, this study simulates urban growth from 2008 to 2029 at a seven-
year interval under two scenarios: the amount of FDIs in the service sector under the current
trajectory (Figure) and the amount that is the fixed to the value in 2008. The simulation
results show different spatial structures when FDI influxes vary (Figure 6). The international
division of labor, an outcome of economic globaization, has expedited investments of TNCs
in manufacturing industries in Asia. It makes manufacturing a key driver in the early stage of
18 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 0(0)

Asian urbanization and urges the expansion of desakota areas (figure 9). When the economy
shifts from manufacturing to the tertiary sector, spatial restructuring takes place in both
desakota and periurban areas. In the Taipei Metropolitan Area all counties except the City of
Taipei had a high percentage of manufacturing activities in the past but this has gradually
declined in recent years (Figure 7). FDIs in the tertiary sector, such as wholesale,
warehousing, and transportation, gradually dominate the local economy and this expedites
urbanization in desakota regions due to the large spaces needed for storing and dispatching
goods (zone A in Figure 6). At the same time, towns and cities close to the growing desakota
areas also expand from their cores to the periurban areas due to population migration and
service activities (zone B in Figure 6). At this stage, desakota and periurban areas play a vital
role in further combining cities and towns to form a MUR. The other scenario shows that if
FDIs in the tertiary sector remain stagnant in the future, the spatial system will change little
in both desakota and periurban areas [zones C and D in Figure 6(d)]. In responding to
McGee’s (1991) question: Are such regions likely to exhibit short-term persistence (up
to fifty years), or are they simply a transitory phenomenon?, this simulation shows
that desakota areas will still exist in the short term but are likely to become part of a
MUR in the long run. Furthermore, the projected growth of the desakota model looks
similar to the formation of a metropolitan area in the West, which is a mixture of
extension and in-fill and driven by the growth of service activities. From the perspective of
spatial restructuring between urban and rural areas, the difference between the projected
urbanization in Asia and West is to some extent by degree rather in kind (eg, conurbation
or MURs). However, there are still fundamental differences between the desakota and
Western models. In Western urbanization, the infiltration from urban to rural is driven
by the needs of living quality rather than economic shifts; the major land-use types in
suburbs are residential and recreation areas rather than a mixture of industrial and
residential areas. In addition, urban sprawl in the West mainly takes place from
periurban areas or satellite towns to surrounding rural areas rather than densely
populated rural areas, which is a unique feature in Asia. As a result, it is essential to
explore the uniqueness of Asian urbanization from not only spatial structures but also
socioeconomic factors.

Conclusions
Unlike Western urban models, the desakota model highlights unique features in Asian
urbanization: rapid urbanization in densely populated rural regions, and a mixture of
economic activities in agriculture and manufacturing. However, the desakota model
emphasizes the influences of local development on the emergence of desakota regions
without considering how economic globalization drives the national and local economy.
This study incorporates impacts of economic globalization into the desakota model and
simulates spatial restructuring through CA modeling that links FDIs and the local
economy to Asian urbanization. The simulation results project the unique urbanization
process driven by the growth of nonagricultural activity in the countryside and by
industrial dispersion from cities and towns (Lin, 2001). Although the secondary sector is
essential in driving urban expansion, the tertiary sector gradually plays a key role in Asian
urbanization. Increasing service activities from FDIs stimulate rapid growth of desakota
regions and gradually link urban centers and periurban areas. Hence desakota regions play a
critical role as ’growth generators’ in Asian urbanization processes where foreign and
domestic capital is concentrated (Lin, 2001), and merge the city and surrounding
urbanizing rural areas to form a MUR (Douglass, 2000).
Wu and Sui 19

The spatial–temporal compression of Asian urbanization driven by economic

globalization not only challenges the long-term urbanization process in the West but also
raises an issue regarding the persistence of spatial structures under economy changes in Asia
(McGee, 1991). When the sectoral shift from agriculture to manufacturing shapes the
desakota structure, it is important to see if and how the tertiary sector in the local
economy and especially in foreign investments is involved in the urbanization process and
how this spurs changes to spatial patterns. If FDIs keep flowing to Asian cities in the future,
the growth of both desakota and periurban areas will lead to the formation of a MUR that
characterizes expansion from desakota areas and spillovers from cores to periurban areas.
The process has a similarity with the formation of a metropolitan area in the West in terms
of the changes of spatial structures and economic activities. However, there are still
fundamental differences between the desakota and Western models that are not intuitively
reflected in the spatial modeling. Consequently, two key issues are worth further research: (1)
urban planning and management by Asian urban governments under fluctuation in the
global economy, and (2) social–economic factors that lead to similarity and differences
between Asian and Western urbanization.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jose Gavinha for comments on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks are also
due to anonymous reviewers whose perceptive comments have enriched this paper.

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Bing Sheng WU is Assistant professor at National Institute of Education, Nanyang

Technological University, Singapore. His research focuses on GIS-based urban modeling,
the adoption of volunteered geographical information in spatial learning, and GIS in
geography education.

Daniel SUI is Professor at Geography Department, the Ohio State University. His research
focuses on four areas: 1. GIS-based spatial analysis and synthesis for urban, environmental,
and public health applications; 2. Volunteered geographic information and the use of social
media as a new data source for geographic research; 3. Legal and ethical issues of using
geospatial technologies in society; 4. Coupling of human and natural systems and security
implications of climate change.

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