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On the location and lock-in of cities: geography vs transportation technology

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  • BEHRENS, Kristian

Abstract

We investigate where cities are located in a spatial economy and why they tend to get "locked-in" at particular sites. Building on Fujita and Krugman (1995) we show that geography and/or transportation technology must exhibit some "non-smoothness" for cities to possibly become "locked-in" in location space. Our results establish that no asymmetric monocentric equilibriumcan be generically sustained when space is homogenous and transportation technologies are "smooth", whereas it can in the presence of transportation hubs and/or concave transport cost functions. This suggests that cities are drawn to transportation hubs during the early stages of economic development, whereas they can be sustained almost everywhere during later stages.
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Suggested Citation

  • BEHRENS, Kristian, 2007. "On the location and lock-in of cities: geography vs transportation technology," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1948, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvrp:1948
    DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2006.04.003
    Note: In : Regional Science & Urban Economics, 37, 22-45, 2007
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    Cited by:

    1. Koji Nishikimi & Ikuo Kuroiwa, 2011. "Analytical Framework for East Asian Integration (1): Industrial Agglomeration and Concentrated Dispersion," Chapters, in: Masahisa Fujita & Ikuo Kuroiwa & Satoru Kumagai (ed.), The Economics of East Asian Integration, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Dong, Lei & Du, Rui & Kahn, Matthew & Ratti, Carlo & Zheng, Siqi, 2021. "“Ghost cities” versus boom towns: Do China's high-speed rail new towns thrive?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Mori, Tomoya & Smith, Tony E., 2015. "On the spatial scale of industrial agglomerations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Yujiro Kawasaki & Kenmei Tsubota, 2019. "Myopic or farsighted: bilateral trade agreements among three symmetric countries," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 233-256, December.
    5. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer & Sellars, Emily A., 2020. "Locational fundamentals, trade, and the changing urban landscape of Mexico," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    6. Behrens, Kristian & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2015. "Agglomeration Theory with Heterogeneous Agents," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 171-245, Elsevier.
    7. Bosker, Maarten & Buringh, Eltjo, 2017. "City seeds: Geography and the origins of the European city system," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 139-157.
    8. TAKAHASHI, Takaaki, 2005. "Economic geography and endogenous determination of transportation technology," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2005014, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Masahisa Fujita & Tomoya Mori, 2005. "Frontiers of the New Economic Geography," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(3), pages 377-405, August.
    10. Lu, Ren & Ruan, Min & Reve, Torger, 2016. "Cluster and co-located cluster effects: An empirical study of six Chinese city regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1984-1995.
    11. Sellars, Emily & Alix-Garcia, Jennifer, "undated". "Locational fundamentals, trade, and the changing urban landscape of Mexico," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274238, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. César Ducruet & Hidekazu Itoh & Olivier Joly, 2015. "Ports and the local embedding of commodity flows," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(3), pages 607-627, August.
    13. Giulio Cainelli & Carlo Ciccarelli & Roberto Ganau, 2021. "Administrative reforms, urban hierarchy, and local population growth. Lessons from Italian unification," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2109, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Feb 2021.
    14. Cui, Xiaomeng & Lai, Wangyang & Lin, Tao, 2025. "Long-distance water infrastructure, rural development and urban growth: Evidence from China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    15. James R. Fain, 2017. "City formation with complex landscapes," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 125-137, October.
    16. Friedt, Felix L. & Toner-Rodgers, Aidan, 2022. "Natural disasters, intra-national FDI spillovers, and economic divergence: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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