About the origin of cities

André de Palma (), Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou, Jacques Thisse and Philip Ushchev

Journal of Urban Economics, 2019, vol. 111, issue C, 1-13

Abstract: We provide a bare–bones framework that uncovers the circumstances which lead either to the emergence of equally-spaced and equally-sized central places or to a hierarchy of central places. We show how these patterns reflect the preferences of agents and the efficiency of transportation and communication technologies. With one population of homogeneous individuals, the economy is characterized by a uniform distribution or by a periodic distribution of central places having the same size. The interaction between two distinct populations may give rise to a hierarchy of central places with one or several primate cities.

Keywords: Central place; Spatial externality; Congestion; Urban hierarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R12 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: About the origin of cities (2019)
Working Paper: About the Origin of Cities (2018)
Working Paper: About the Origin of Cities (2018)
Working Paper: About the Origin of Cities (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:111:y:2019:i:c:p:1-13

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2019.01.006

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