 Resetting the Urban Network: 117-2012Ferdinand Rauch and Guy Michaels No 684, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics Abstract: Do locational fundamentals such as coastlines and rivers determine town locations, or can historical events trap towns in unfavorable locations for centuries? We examine the effects on town locations of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which temporarily ended urbanization in Britain, but not in France. As urbanization recovered, medieval towns were more often found in Roman-era town locations in France thanin Britain, and this difference still persists today. The resetting of Britain's urban network gave it better access to naturally navigable waterways when this was important, while many French towns remained without such access. Keywords: Economic Geography; Economic History; Path Dependence; Transportation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxf:wpaper:684 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC. |
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