  How robust are socioeconomic agent-based models with respect to the details
of the agents' decision rule? We tackle this question by considering an
occupation model in the spirit of the Sakoda-Schelling model, historically
introduced to shed light on segregation dynamics among human groups. For a
large class of utility functions and decision rules, we pinpoint the
nonequilibrium nature of the agent dynamics, while recovering the
equilibrium-like phase separation phenomenology. Within the mean field
approximation we show how the model can be mapped, to some extent, onto an
active matter field description. Finally, we consider non-reciprocal
interactions between two populations, and show how they can lead to non-steady
macroscopic behavior. We believe our approach provides a unifying framework to
further study geography-dependent agent-based models, notably paving the way
for joint consideration of population and price dynamics within a field
theoretic approach.
