Publication Type

Book Chapter

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

3-2019

Abstract

This chapter provides a review of the link between central place theory and the power laws for cities. A theory of city size distribution is proposed via a central place hierarchy a la Christaller (1933) either as an equilibrium results or an optimal allocation. Under a central place hierarchy, it is shown that a power law for cities emerges if the underlying heterogeneity in economies of scale across good is regularly varying. Furthermore, we show that an optimal allocation of cities conforms with a central place hierarchy if the underlying heterogeneity in economies of scale across good is a power function.

Keywords

Central place theory, City sizes, Dynamic programming, Optimal city hierarchy, Zipf’s law

Discipline

Behavioral Economics | Urban Studies and Planning

Research Areas

Applied Microeconomics

Publication

The mathematics of urban morphology: Modeling and simulation in science, engineering and technology

Editor

L. D'Acci

First Page

55

Last Page

75

ISBN

9783030123819

Identifier

10.1007/978-3-030-12381-9_3

Publisher

Springer

City or Country

Cham

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12381-9_3

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