scholarly journals Evolutionary Model of the City Size Distribution

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Joachim Kaldasch

An evolutionary model of the city size distribution is presented that explains the size of a city from the reproduction process and the migration of humans between cities. The model suggests that the city size distribution is a lognormal distribution with a power law tail in agreement with empirical results and computer simulations. The main idea of the model is that the competition between cities in the migration process is the origin of Gibrat's law. While growth rate fluctuations generate the lognormal branch of the size distribution, the power law tail for large cities is caused by a small mean growth rate.

Author(s):  
Rafael González-Val

This paper analyses the Spanish city size distribution from a new perspective, focusing on the role played by distance. Using un-truncated data from all cities in 1900 and 2011, we study the spatial distribution of cities and how the city size distribution varies with distance. First, K-densities are estimated to identify different spatial patterns depending on city size, with significant patterns of dispersion found for medium-sized and large cities. Second, using a distance-based approach that considers all possible combinations of cities within a 200-kilometre radius, we analyse the influence of distance on the city size distribution parameters, considering both the Pareto and lognormal distributions. The results validate the Pareto distribution in most of the cases regardless of city size, and the lognormal distribution at short distances.


Urban Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 2159-2185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zelai Xu ◽  
Nong Zhu

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Engin Sorhun

Based on the assumption that the economic integration process contributes, via market reforms, to the dynamics of the space distribution in candidate countries, this study examines (i) whether agglomeration forces or dispersion forces are dominant; (ii) whether EU-integration causes a structural break to the space distribution over time; (iii) whether EU-integration makes the city-size distribution more even or uneven in eight eastern European Union members (EU–8). To carry out the analysis, the Ziwot-Andrew and Cusum Square tests are used to detect structural breaks; the ARDL Bound test is used to reveal the interaction between long-run and short-run equilibrium; and the Granger test is used to determine the direction of the causality among the variables. The main results are: the integration with the EU (i) caused a structural break to the city-size distribution, (ii) made the city-size distribution more uneven and (iii) stimulated the agglomerating forces over the spreading forces in the EU–8.


10.3982/qe619 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1419-1451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Berliant ◽  
Axel H. Watanabe

Author(s):  
Lucien Benguigui ◽  
Efrat Blumenfeld-Lieberthal ◽  
Michael Batty

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 905-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Thomas

This paper is an analysis of the city-size distribution for thirty-five countries of the world in 1975; the purpose is to explain statistically the regularity of the rank-size distribution by the number of cities included in the urban systems. The rank-size parameters have been computed for each country and also for four large urban systems in which several population thresholds have been defined. These thresholds seem to have more influence than the number of cities included in the urban system on the regularity of the distribution.


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