City size distributions and metropolisation

Pumain, Dénise; Moriconi-Ébrard, François

doi:10.3406/geoas.1997.2063

Cited by 30 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…Using the OLS calculation, we can fit equations (7) and (8) Then, we investigate the allometric scaling relation based on the rank-size distribution. This is a kind of transversal allometry based on cross-sectional data (Pumain and Moriconi-Ebrard, 1997;Woldenberg, 1973). In fact, from equations (7) and (…”

Section: Results and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

Chen

Feng

2017

Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society

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The law of allometric scaling based on Zipf distributions can be employed to research hierarchies of cities in a geographical region. However, the allometric patterns are easily influenced by random disturbance from the noises in observational data. In theory, both the allometric growth law and Zipf's law are related to the hierarchical scaling laws associated with fractal structure. In this paper, the scaling laws of hierarchies with cascade structure are used to study Chinese cities, and the method of R/S analysis is applied to analyzing the change trend of the allometric scaling exponents. The results show that the hierarchical scaling relations of Chinese cities became clearer and clearer from 1991 to 2014 year; the global allometric scaling exponent values fluctuated around 0.85, and the local scaling exponent approached to 0.85. The Hurst exponent of the allometric parameter change is greater than 0.5, indicating persistence and a long-term memory of urban evolution. The main conclusions can be reached as follows: the allometric scaling law of cities represents an evolutionary order rather than an invariable rule, which emerges from self-organized process of urbanization, and the ideas from allometry and fractals can be combined to optimize spatial and hierarchical structure of urban systems in future city planning.

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Section: Results and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

Chen

Feng

2017

Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society

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“…This approach employs panels of cities or urban (metropolitan) areas. Among studies using this approach, most reject both laws (Pumain & Moriconi‐Ebrard ; Song & Zhang ; Black & Henderson ; Delgado & Godinho ; Moura & Ribeiro ; Soo ; Bosker ; Xu & Zhu ), but there is some support (Giesen & Suedekum ).…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…If studies employ cross‐sectional data on urban agglomerations only, it would still be impossible to test whether agglomeration intensifies. The latter would be reflected in an increase in the power law parameter over time (Rosen & Resnick ; Pumain & Moriconi‐Ebrard ; Gabaix & Ioannides ; Brakman et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Century of the Evolution of the Urban System in Brazil

Matlaba

Holmes

McCann

et al. 2013

Rev Urban & Reg Develop

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In this paper, we study the hitherto unexplored evolution of the size distribution of 185 urban areas in Brazil between 1907 and 2008. We find that the power law parameter of the size distribution of the 100 largest urban areas increases from 0.63 in 1907 to 0.89 in 2008, which confirms an agglomeration process in which the size distribution has become more unequal. A panel fixed effects model pooling the same range of urban size distributions provides a power law parameter equal to 0.53, smaller than those from cross-sectional estimation. Clearly, Zipf's Law is rejected. The lognormal distribution fits the city size distribution quite well until the 1940s, but since then applies to small and medium size cities only. These results are consistent with our understanding of historical-political and socio-economic processes that have shaped the development of Brazilian cities.

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“…The relevant literature contains contradictory results, and the debate, initiated many decades ago (Quandt 1964;Parr and Suzuki 1973), is still unresolved (Eeckhout 2004(Eeckhout , 2009Levy 2009). While the power law is accurate only on the upper tail of the distributions, but not exactly for the largest cities because of primacy (Jefferson 1939) or macrocephaly effects (Pumain and Moriconi-Ebrard 1997), the log-normal distribution seems to provide a better description when an entire settlement system is considered (Beckmann 1958;Berry 1961;Pumain 1982;Eeckhout 2004;Anderson and Ge 2005). A three-parameter (mean, standard deviation, and threshold for urban size) log-normal distribution was estimated for the French urban system (Pumain 1982).…”

Section: The Statistical Distribution Of City Sizesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gibrat Revisited: An Urban Growth Model Incorporating Spatial Interaction and Innovation Cycles. 再评吉尔布瑞特：顾及空间相互作用和创新周期的城市增长模型

Favaro

Pumain

2011

Geographical Analysis

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We designed a geographical model for simulating the distribution of urban growth in systems of cities. The model incorporates the hierarchical and spatial diffusion of innovation cycles through gravitational interactions within a set of cities. Using theoretical simulations, we demonstrate that this model is able to reproduce the observed properties of urban systems for the log-normal distribution of city sizes as well as the observed distribution of growth rates. Our experimentation was performed on a large harmonized historical database that includes a few hundred French urban agglomerations between 1831 and 1999 (Pumain-INED database). Both spatial interaction and innovation cycles are necessary ingredients to explain the evolution of urban hierarchies. We suggest that Gibrat's generic stochastic growth model based on independent entities should be replaced by a more relevant model of spatially and temporally interdependent geographical entities.

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City size distributions and metropolisation

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

A Century of the Evolution of the Urban System in Brazil

Gibrat Revisited: An Urban Growth Model Incorporating Spatial Interaction and Innovation Cycles. 再评吉尔布瑞特：顾及空间相互作用和创新周期的城市增长模型

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