Urban Spatial Structure

Alex Anas (alex.anas@verizon.net), Richard Arnott and Kenneth Small (ksmall@uci.edu)

University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers from University of California Transportation Center

Abstract: An interview with Chicago's current mayor, Richard M. Daley: 'New York is too big this way,' the mayor says, raising a thick hand over his head. Stretching both arms out at his sides, he adds, 'Los Angeles is too big this way. All the other cities are too small. We're just right.' (Bailey and Coleman, 1996, p. 6) Mayor Daley is catering to a widespread fascination with the roles that urban size and structure play in people's lives. Academic as well as other observers have long sought explanations for urban development patterns and criteria by which to judge their desirability. Furthermore, as we shall see, understanding the organization of cities yields insights about economy-wide growth processes and sheds light on economic concepts of long standing interest: returns to scale, monopolistic competition, vertical integration, technological innovation, innovation diffusion, and international specialization. Cities also are prime illustrations of some newer academic interests such as complex structural evolution and self-organization.

Keywords: Social; and; Behavioral; Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/835049q3.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Urban Spatial Structure (1998)
Working Paper: Urban Spatial Structure (1997)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt835049q3

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers from University of California Transportation Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff (help@escholarship.org).