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
Citation
HSU, Wen-Tai and ZOU XIN.
Central place theory and the power law for cities. (2019). The mathematics of urban morphology: Modeling and simulation in science, engineering and technology. 55-75.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2281
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12381-9_3
