Patterns in U.S. urban growth (1790–2000)

Rafael González-Val and Luis Lanaspa ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper reconsiders the evolution of the growth of American cities since 1790 in the light of new theories of urban growth. Our null hypothesis for long-term growth is random growth. We obtain evidence supporting random growth against the alternative of mean reversion (convergence) in city sizes using panel unit root tests. We also examine mobility within the distribution to try to extract growth patterns different from the general unit root trend detected. We find evidence of high mobility when we model growth as a first-order Markov process. Finally, using a cluster procedure we find strong evidence in favour of conditional convergence in city growth rates within convergence clubs, which we can interpret as “local” mean-reverting behaviours. Both the high mobility and the results of the clustering analysis seem to indicate a sequential city growth pattern.

Keywords: city size; urban growth; random growth; sequential city growth; transition matrices; club convergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C12 O18 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-his and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/31006/1/MPRA_paper_31006.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/50963/1/MPRA_paper_50963.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/52539/1/MPRA_paper_52539.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/54296/1/MPRA_paper_54296.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/34435/1/MPRA_paper_34435.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Patterns in US Urban Growth, 1790-2000 (2016)
Working Paper: Patterns in US Urban Growth (1790-2000) (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:31006

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