IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jorssa/v183y2020i1p211-228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productivity, infrastructure and urban density—an allometric comparison of three European city regions across scales

Author

Listed:
  • Hadi Arbabi
  • Martin Mayfield
  • Philip McCann

Abstract

Agglomeration‐based arguments citing Dutch and German city regions have been a primary driver in advocating intercity transport strategies in the north of England. We adopt an allometric urban model investigating the applicability and transferability of these transport‐led agglomerative strategies promoted to address England's regional economic underperformance. This is undertaken through a comparative study of the size–cost performance balance of three city regions and the overall urban networks in the Netherlands and Germany, and England and Wales by using city units defined at different spatial scales. Although our results support a case for better mobility and transport comparing the three urban networks regardless of the spatial scales, comparisons of specific city regions indicate a more nuanced interplay of productivity, mobility infrastructure and urban density.

Suggested Citation

  • Hadi Arbabi & Martin Mayfield & Philip McCann, 2020. "Productivity, infrastructure and urban density—an allometric comparison of three European city regions across scales," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(1), pages 211-228, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:183:y:2020:i:1:p:211-228
    DOI: 10.1111/rssa.12490
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12490
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rssa.12490?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. Edward L. Glaeser & Janet E. Kohlhase, 2004. "Cities, regions and the decline of transport costs," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Raymond J. G. M. Florax & David A. Plane (ed.), Fifty Years of Regional Science, pages 197-228, Springer.
    2. Martijn J. Burger & Evert J. Meijers & Marloes M. Hoogerbrugge & Jaume Masip Tresserra, 2015. "Borrowed Size, Agglomeration Shadows and Cultural Amenities in North-West Europe," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 1090-1109, June.
    3. Samaniego, Horacio & Moses, Melanie E., 2008. "Cities as Organisms: Allometric Scaling of Urban Road Networks," The Journal of Transport and Land Use, Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, vol. 1(1), pages 21-39.
    4. Hernán D. Rozenfeld & Diego Rybski & Xavier Gabaix & Hernán A. Makse, 2011. "The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2205-2225, August.
    5. Jeff Alstott & Ed Bullmore & Dietmar Plenz, 2014. "powerlaw: A Python Package for Analysis of Heavy-Tailed Distributions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, January.
    6. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser, 2010. "Introduction to "Agglomeration Economics"," NBER Chapters, in: Agglomeration Economics, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Luis Bettencourt & Geoffrey West, 2010. "A unified theory of urban living," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7318), pages 912-913, October.
    9. Andres Gomez-Lievano & HyeJin Youn & Luís M A Bettencourt, 2012. "The Statistics of Urban Scaling and Their Connection to Zipf’s Law," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-11, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    2. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    3. Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2015. "US city size distribution revisited: Theory and empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 64051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034, Decembrie.
    5. Diego Rybski & Dominik E Reusser & Anna-Lena Winz & Christina Fichtner & Till Sterzel & Jürgen P Kropp, 2017. "Cities as nuclei of sustainability?," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 44(3), pages 425-440, May.
    6. Ho Yeon KIM & Petra de Jong & Jan Rouwendal & Aleid Brouwer, 2012. "Shrinking population and the urban hierarchy [Housing preferences and attribute importance among Dutch older adults: a conjoint choice experiment]," ERSA conference papers ersa12p350, European Regional Science Association.
    7. Lee, Sanghoon & Li, Qiang, 2013. "Uneven landscapes and city size distributions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 19-29.
    8. Rudolf Cesaretti & José Lobo & Luís M A Bettencourt & Scott G Ortman & Michael E Smith, 2016. "Population-Area Relationship for Medieval European Cities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-27, October.
    9. Yilin Dong, 2020. "Determinants of entry: Evidence from new manufacturing firms in the U.S," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 1542-1561, December.
    10. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    11. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2009. "The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 983-1028, December.
    12. Ferdinand Rauch, 2014. "Cities as spatial clusters," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 759-773.
    13. 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.
    14. Montebruno, Piero & Bennett, Robert J. & van Lieshout, Carry & Smith, Harry, 2019. "A tale of two tails: Do Power Law and Lognormal models fit firm-size distributions in the mid-Victorian era?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 858-875.
    15. Gilberto Seravalli, 2016. "Dimensioni e crescita delle citt? in Europa: l?incertezza danneggia soprattutto le citt? medie," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 91-108.
    16. Rafael Gonz�lez-Val & Luis Lanaspa, 2016. "Patterns in US Urban Growth, 1790-2000," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(2), pages 289-309, February.
    17. Ana Goncalves & Tiago Domingos, 2011. "Urban Growth and Its Impact on Development," ERSA conference papers ersa10p98, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Sen, Hu & Chunxia, Yang & Xueshuai, Zhu & Zhilai, Zheng & Ya, Cao, 2015. "Distributions of region size and GDP and their relation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 430(C), pages 46-56.
    19. Abhik Ghosh & Souvik Chattopadhay & Banasri Basu, 2024. "Multi-scale analysis of rural and urban areas: a case study of Indian districts," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 97(1), pages 1-13, January.
    20. Patrick Erik Bradley & Martin Behnisch, 2019. "Heavy-tailed distributions for building stock data," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(7), pages 1281-1296, September.

    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:bla:jorssa:v:183:y:2020:i:1:p:211-228. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rssssea.html .

    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.