Exploring spatial anisotropy features and capturing spatial interactions during urban change simulation is of great significance to enhance the effectiveness of dynamic urban modeling and improve simulation accuracy. Addressing the inadequacies of current cellular automaton-based urban expansion models in exploring spatial anisotropy features, overlooking spatial interaction forces, and the ineffective expansion of cells due to traditional neighborhood computation methods, this study builds upon the machine learning-based urban expansion model. It introduces a spatial anisotropy index into the comprehensive probability module and incorporates a gravity-guided expansion neighborhood operator into the iterative module. Consequently, the RF-CNN-SAI-CA model is developed. Focusing on the 21 districts of the main urban area in Chongqing, the study conducts comparative analysis and ablation experiments using different models to simulate the land use changes between 2010 and 2020. Different model comparison results show that the recommended model in this study has a Kappa value of 0.8561 and an FOM value of 0.4596. Compared with the RF-CA model and the FA-MLP-CA model, the Kappa values are higher by 0.0407 and 0.1577, respectively, while the FOM values are improved by 0.0529 and 0.0654, respectively. Ablation experiment results indicate that removing gravity, SAI, and expansion neighborhood operators leads to a decrease in both Kappa and FOM values. These findings demonstrate that the RF-CNN-SAI-CA model, based on the expanded neighborhood iteration algorithm, effectively integrates spatial anisotropy features, captures spatial interaction forces, and resolves neighborhood cell failure issues, thereby significantly improving simulation effectiveness.

Land use/cover change (LUCC) refers to the phenomenon of changes in the Earth’s surface over time. Accurate prediction of LUCC is crucial for guiding policy formulation and resource management, contributing to the sustainable use of land, and maintaining the health of the Earth’s ecosystems. LUCC is a dynamic geographical process involving complex spatiotemporal dependencies. Existing LUCC simulation models suffer from insufficient spatiotemporal feature learning, and traditional cellular automaton (CA) models exhibit limitations in neighborhood effects. This study proposes a cellular automaton model based on spatiotemporal feature learning and hotspot area pre-allocation (VST-PCA). The model utilizes the video swin transformer to acquire transformation rules, enabling a more accurate capture of the spatiotemporal dependencies inherent in LUCC. Simultaneously, a pre-allocation strategy is introduced in the CA simulation to address the local constraints of neighborhood effects, thereby enhancing the simulation accuracy. Using the Chongqing metropolitan area as the study area, two traditional CA models and two deep learning-based CA models were constructed to validate the performance of the VST-PCA model. Results indicated that the proposed VST-PCA model achieved Kappa and FOM values of 0.8654 and 0.4534, respectively. Compared to other models, Kappa increased by 0.0322–0.1036, and FOM increased by 0.0513–0.1649. This study provides an accurate and effective method for LUCC simulation, offering valuable insights for future research and land management planning.