IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v37y2000i7p1063-1077.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes in the Scale and Size Distribution of US Metropolitan Areas during the Twentieth Century

Author

Listed:
  • Steven Ehrlich

    (Office of Policy Development and Research of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC 20410, USA, Steven_R._Ehrlich@hud.gov)

  • Joseph Gyourko

    (Department of Real Estate and Finance, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Lauder Fisher Hall, 256 South 37th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6330, USA, gyourko@wharton.upenn.edu)

Abstract

The scale and size distribution of US metropolitan areas from 1910 to 1995 are documented and analysed. The data show that the country's population became increasingly concentrated, prior to the Second World War, in the largest metropolitan areas in the top decile of the size distribution by population. The data leave little doubt that the largest labour market areas became increasingly attractive places in which to live and work during this time. In contrast to this pre-war trend, the data since 1950 show a loss of population share for the largest metropolitan areas in the top decile of the population size distribution. This loss of share by very large areas is not counterbalanced by increasing share among small or medium-sized metropolitan areas. Rather, the share is captured by the next-largest group of areas in the adjacent decile of the size distribution. Thus, while there is evidence of declining share for the very largest areas, there is no evidence that the rise of the services/information sectors of the economy has made small or medium-sized areas especially attractive places in which to live or work in the post-war era. In addition, the data provide only limited support for the hypothesis that a decline in the desirability of large metropolitan areas could account for the decline of many of the nation's larger central cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Ehrlich & Joseph Gyourko, 2000. "Changes in the Scale and Size Distribution of US Metropolitan Areas during the Twentieth Century," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(7), pages 1063-1077, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:7:p:1063-1077
    DOI: 10.1080/00420980020080011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980020080011
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00420980020080011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosen, Kenneth T. & Resnick, Mitchel, 1980. "The size distribution of cities: An examination of the Pareto law and primacy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 165-186, September.
    2. Ronald L. Moomaw, 1988. "Agglomeration Economies: Localization or Urbanization?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 25(2), pages 150-161, April.
    3. Nakamura, Ryohei, 1985. "Agglomeration economies in urban manufacturing industries: A case of Japanese cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 108-124, January.
    4. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1986. "Efficiency of resource usage and city size," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 47-70, January.
    5. Glenn Fuguitt & Tim Heaton & Daniel Lichter, 1988. "Monitoring the metropolitanization process," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(1), pages 115-128, February.
    6. Segal, David, 1976. "Are There Returns to Scale in City Size?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(3), pages 339-350, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Cuberes & Rafael González-Val, 2017. "The effect of the Spanish Reconquest on Iberian cities," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 58(3), pages 375-416, May.
    2. George A. Erickcek & Hannah McKinney, 2004. "Small Cities Blues: Looking for Growth Factors in Small and Medium-Sized Cities," Upjohn Working Papers 04-100, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. Cuberes, David, 2011. "Sequential city growth: Empirical evidence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 229-239, March.
    4. Rafael GONZÀLEZ-VAL, 2012. "Zipf’S Law: Main Issues In Empirical Work," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 36, pages 147-164.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elsie L. Echeverri-Carroll & Sofia G. Ayala, 2011. "Urban Wages: Does City Size Matter?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 253-271, February.
    2. Zuohong Pan & Fan Zhang, 2002. "Urban Productivity in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(12), pages 2267-2281, November.
    3. Yung Joon Lee & Hyoungsoo Zang, 1998. "Urbanisation and Regional Productivity in Korean Manufacturing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(11), pages 2085-2099, November.
    4. Agarwalla, Astha, 2011. "Agglomeration Economies and Productivity Growth in India," IIMA Working Papers WP2011-01-08, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    5. Shelby Gerking, 1993. "Measuring Productivity Growth in U.S. Regions: A Survey," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 16(1-2), pages 155-185, April.
    6. Alex Anas & Richard Arnott & Kenneth A. Small, 1998. "Urban Spatial Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1426-1464, September.
    7. Moomaw, Ronald L., 1998. "Agglomeration economies: Are they exaggerated by industrial aggregation?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 199-211, March.
    8. Gashawbeza Bekele & Randall Jackson, 2006. "Theoretical Perspectives on Industry Clusters," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-05, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    9. Daniel Graham, 2000. "Spatial Variation in Labour Productivity in British Manufacturing," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 323-341.
    10. Lichao Wu & Yanpeng Jiang & Lili Wang & Xinhao Qiao, 2022. "The two faces of urbanisation and productivity: Enhance or inhibit? New evidence from Chinese firm‐level data," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University, vol. 36(1), pages 126-142, May.
    11. Feser, Edward J., 2001. "A flexible test for agglomeration economies in two US manufacturing industries," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-19, February.
    12. J. Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urbanization and Economic Development," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 275-341, November.
    13. Jun Koo & Somik Lall, 2007. "New Economic Geography: Real or Hype?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 30(1), pages 3-19, January.
    14. repec:rri:wpaper:200605 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Arup Mitra, 2011. "Urbanization in India: Evidence on Agglomeration Economies," Working Papers id:4394, eSocialSciences.
    16. Junius, Karsten, 1997. "Economies of scale: A survey of the empirical literature," Kiel Working Papers 813, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    17. Guimaraes, Paulo & Figueiredo, Octavio & Woodward, Douglas, 2000. "Agglomeration and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in Portugal," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 115-135, January.
    18. Edward J. Feser, 2002. "Tracing the Sources of Local External Economies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(13), pages 2485-2506, December.
    19. Miki Malul & Raphael Bar-El, 2009. "The Gap between Free Market and Social Optimum in the Location Decision of Economic Activity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(10), pages 2045-2059, September.
    20. Frank Giarratani & Gene Gruver & Randall Jackson, 2007. "Clusters, Agglomeration, and Economic Development Potential: Empirical Evidence Based on the Advent of Slab Casting by U.S. Steel Minimills," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 21(2), pages 148-164, May.
    21. Edward Feser, 2004. "A Flexible Test for Agglomeration Economies in Two U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Working Papers 04-14, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:7:p:1063-1077. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.