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Trends in sizes and structures of urban areas

In: Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics

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  • Cheshire, Paul

Abstract

This chapter reviews the literature dealing with systems of cities and the patterns of development within such systems. It starts with the longstanding question of the distribution of city sizes, both in relation to how this distribution can be described and, given the form that it takes, how that form can be explained. Such explanations frequently invoke various sorts of agglomeration economies and so some of the literature relating to these is included here. The chapter then surveys the literature that examines patterns of development within urban systems, and then work at a more disaggregated level on suburbanisation. The chapter concludes with a summary of research into recent patterns of urbanisation, including relative recentralisation.

Suggested Citation

  • Cheshire, Paul, 1999. "Trends in sizes and structures of urban areas," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 35, pages 1339-1373, Elsevier.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:regchp:3-35
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Kristian Giesen & Jens Südekum, 2011. "Zipf's law for cities in the regions and the country," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 667-686, July.
    2. Ronan Lyons & Elisa Maria Tirindelli, 2022. "The Rise & Fall of Urban Concentration in Britain: Zipf, Gibrat and Gini across two centuries," Trinity Economics Papers tep0522, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    3. Rafael González-Val, 2011. "Deviations from Zipf’s Law for American Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(5), pages 1017-1035, April.
    4. Nitsch, Volker, 2005. "Zipf zipped," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 86-100, January.
    5. Frick, Susanne A. & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2018. "Change in urban concentration and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 156-170.
    6. Kristian GIESEN & Jens SÜDEKUM, 2012. "The French Overall City Size Distribution," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 36, pages 107-126.
    7. Overman, Henry G. & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2001. "Cross-Sectional Evolution of the U.S. City Size Distribution," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 543-566, May.
    8. Soo, Kwok Tong, 2005. "Zipf's Law for cities: a cross-country investigation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 239-263, May.
    9. Rafael González-Val, 2012. "A Nonparametric Estimation of the Local Zipf Exponent for all US Cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 39(6), pages 1119-1130, December.
    10. Martijn Burger & Evert Meijers, 2012. "Form Follows Function? Linking Morphological and Functional Polycentricity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(5), pages 1127-1149, April.
    11. Cheshire, Paul, 2009. "Urban land markets and policy failures," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 30837, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Arshad, Sidra & Hu, Shougeng & Ashraf, Badar Nadeem, 2019. "Zipf’s law, the coherence of the urban system and city size distribution: Evidence from Pakistan," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 513(C), pages 87-103.
    13. Kwok Tong Soo, 2007. "Zipf's Law and Urban Growth in Malaysia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(1), pages 1-14, January.
    14. Michel Dimou & Alexandra Schaffar, 2009. "Urban Hierarchies and City Growth in the Balkans," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(13), pages 2891-2906, December.
    15. Alexandra SCHAFFAR & Sotiris PAVLEAS, 2014. "The Evolution Of The Greek Urban Centers: 1951-2011," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 39, pages 87-104.
    16. González-Val, Rafael & Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2010. "On the best functions to describe city size distributions," MPRA Paper 21921, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Moreno-Monroy, Ana I. & Schiavina, Marcello & Veneri, Paolo, 2021. "Metropolitan areas in the world. Delineation and population trends," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Marco Modica, 2014. "Does the EU have homogeneous urban structure area? The role of agglomeration and the impact of shocks on urban structure," ERSA conference papers ersa14p229, European Regional Science Association.
    19. Aurélie Lalanne & Martin Zumpe, 2020. "Time-Series Based Empirical Assessment of Random Urban Growth: New Evidence from France," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 18(4), pages 911-926, December.
    20. Evert Meijers, 2008. "Summing Small Cities Does Not Make a Large City: Polycentric Urban Regions and the Provision of Cultural, Leisure and Sports Amenities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(11), pages 2323-2342, October.
    21. Desmet, Klaus & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2000. "The changing spatial distribution of economic activity across U.S. counties," UC3M Working papers. Economics 7252, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    22. Evert Meijers & Krister Sandberg, 2006. "Polycentric Development to Combat Regional Disparities? the Relation Between Polycentricity and Regional Disparities in European Countries," ERSA conference papers ersa06p287, European Regional Science Association.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics

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