Abstract:Sizes in a system of cities follow the so-called rank-size distribution or the more general Zipf's law. Previous research demonstrates that the rank-size relationship can be explained and simulated by a rather simple spatial choice model, describing individual residential behavior across cities. In studying population density within each of the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, we discovered another type of regularity: population density at the tract level and the logarithm of the rank by tra… Show more
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