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Exercise 2. Schelling's Tipping Model, continued.


Exercise 2. Schelling's Tipping Model, continued. The purpose of this exercise is to study some of the effects of having unequal numbers of the two types of actors. You should use the variant of Schelling's model described in the first exercise. The exercise is to answer these two questions and explain why things worked out as they did:
  1. Do minorities get packed in tighter than majorities?
  2. Does the process settle down faster when the numbers are unequal?
To make things concrete, use 30 Whites and 10 Blacks, both with the original (and equal) requirements for contentment. For density studies, use the A and B measures described for the first exercise.

Your should arrange to stop a run when no further change is possible. An easy way to do this is use periods of at least 40 events, and check whether there has been no movement in the current period since that would imply that everyone is content and no will ever move again. As in the first exercise, a beginner may choose to use the source code provided, and make the necessary changes.


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Revised November 4, 1996.