emergent/swarm/evolutionary systems etc

[Peter MacKenzie]

Sorry for the long response time.  I've been busy, and my brain has been
clogged up with a cold and hayfever.

Although I'm sure your instructions on creating files etc are perfectly
valid, I lack the basic grammatical knowledge to make use of them (I really
am very new to programing).  I'll have to wait for my skills to catch up
with my ideas before I can move on, but that must wait until July, as I have
impending exams that demand much of my focus.

In addition to exams, I also must start a dissertation in July for my
geography hon B.Sc.  Although I should ideally have found a subject two
months ago, I've so far lacked any truly appealing project ideas (much to
the consternation of my advisor).  Since reading 'Emergence', by Steven
Johnson, and conducting prelimenary research on the matter, I've settled on
the dissertation title: "Emergence theory as an approach to city design".

To this goal, I'd like to use computer modeling to simulate ways in which
the spatial distribution of indicator phenomena in cities (land price/use,
crime, demographic composition etc) is affected by bottom-up, local area
rules.  Given that I have only a basic foothold on the language, does
anybody foresee difficulties for me learning enough to impliment simple and
experimentally flexible sim-city style simulations (minus fancy graphics and
llamas) in no more than 2 months (to allow for time to conduct actual
experiments + field observations etc)?  I would be able to engender aid from
various staff, and the university library should carry titles on the
subject.  Failing that, I could do it the old fashioned way and buy a how-to
book, but I'd like some opinions on the difficulty of the goal from people
who've already trancended the non-programmer/programmer barrier.