In this paper, an integrated application of system dynamics model and GIS technology
is developed to assist evaluation of the future trend of the residential development in
Plieningen district of Stuttgart Region, Germany. The model examines interactions of
sustainability indicators in four sectors (“Housing”, “Economics”, “Society” and
“Environment”) within a time frame of 30 years, and then the result of this model is
discussed with two possible development patterns – compact development and outward
development in Plieningen. It can be also concluded that the integration of System
Dynamics theory and GIS is a useful strategy to study the development of urban
residential areas in terms of sustainability. A validation is undertaken to verify SD
model, by comparing with historic data and mean square error. In this study, we can find
the development process of our residential areas, and put a further concern on the
development of the urban residential development from another point of view.
However, there are still a number of opportunities for expanding the study and for
validating the results obtained herein. Firstly, only core-indicators were considered in
this work. It would be of scientific interest to add other indicators resulting from
policies and strategies. Secondly, further research would be required to collect more
historic data and optimize the structure of system dynamics model. Thirdly, in this paper we only considered the a very small district of Stuttgart as the study object and also
didn’t input terrain data and street data in 3D GIS analysis.