SOME GENERALIZATIONS CONCERNING PRIMATE CITIES<sup>1</sup>

Linsky, Arnold S.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1965.tb00531.x

Cited by 71 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Mehta (1964) found that primacy was a function of the small area and population size of countries. Linsky (1965) proposed that high urban primacy is most often associated with countries of small extent but high density, low per capita income, export‐oriented and agricultural economies, a colonial history, and rapid rates of population growth. Ades and Glaeser (1995) correlated urban primacy with political instability and high levels of centralized political power.…”

Section: Urban Primacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Primacy: Reopening the Debate

Short

Pinet-Peralta

2009

Geography Compass

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This paper reviews the empirical and theoretical material on urban primacy. The problems with data are highlighted. A measure of primacy is estimated and calculated for most countries in the world. Countries with relatively high rates of primacy are noted. The hyperprimacy of Thailand is discussed as well as the high primacy in middle‐income Latin American countries, low‐income African countries, and selected European countries. Countries with very low primacy rates are identified. A retheorization of urban primacy is suggested with more emphasis on history, geography and scale.

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Section: Urban Primacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Primacy: Reopening the Debate

Short

Pinet-Peralta

2009

Geography Compass

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“…Rank-size distributions featuring such a distinct "primate city" (following Jefferson 1939;Morse 1962;Mehta 1964;Linsky 1965), associated with smaller settlements that adhere roughly to the rank-size rule, may be attributed to conditions of low system closure and high interdependence between communities (Vapnarsky 1968). Indeed, Uruk stood at the center of a far-flung network of economic and political interaction with neighboring regions (Algaze 1989).…”

Section: Rank-size Perspectives On Early Urbanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeds of Civilization: Bronze Age Rural Economy and Ecology in the Southern Levant

Fall

Lines

Falconer

1998

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

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This paper considers the economic and environmental impacts of emerging regional commerce that accompanied the rise and collapse of early Near Eastern urbanism. We integrate regional data on settlement and vegetation with detailed evidence of rural agriculture from two Bronze Age villages in the Jordan Valley. This approach is explicitly rural, in light of the largely rural character of Levantine civilization, and in response to more orthodox analytical perspectives focused on the first cities. Long-standing interest in the advent of agriculture now reveals that intensive localized depletion of woodland resources followed the aggregation of sedentary agrarian communities in the eighth through sixth millennia B.C., while the development of specialized pastoralism established one potential source of more extensive, subsequent defoliation. We argue, however, that regional human impacts on Levantine vegetation were triggered only with the genesis of Bronze Age cities and urbanized economies in the third and second millennia B.C. Thereafter, these regional impacts molded an ever-shifting mosaic of anthropogenic and natural landscapes. Rank-size analysis illustrates the modestly integrated, largely rural nature of Bronze Age settlement in the southern Levant. In this context, Tell Abu en-Ni'aj and Tell el-Hayyat provide appropriate examples of the resilient agrarian villages that persisted through the dramatic collapse and rebirth of early Levantine cities. Excavated plant remains and animal bones show that their inhabitants responded to the development of Bronze Age urbanism with a shift toward increased management of taxa with greater market potential, tempered by some retention of local economic autonomy. Shifts to greater sheep husbandry and, most significantly, cultivation of orchard crops like olives, figs, and grapes, signal a second wave of economic innovation that fundamentally altered the agricultural strategies of village farmers and their exploitation of the surrounding countryside. Thus the mixed cultural and natural landscapes that have supported long-term agriculture in the Levant reflect a legacy of discontinuous changes in rural economy and ecology in response to the waxing and waning of urbanized society and regional mercantile exchange.

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“…Given the large geographical size of India and the lop-sided regional economic development [29], this is plausible. Linsky [30] has pointed out that primacy will be more prominent in countries with small territorial extents, but it is noteworthy that India has a large territorial extent. However, the states in India are of the size of many European countries and, as such, the polarized development within the individual states has created a primacy within these states.…”

Section: Rank-size Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

India’s Urban System: Sustainability and Imbalanced Growth of Cities

2020

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This paper maps out the structure and relative dynamics of cities of various size classes in India. It aims to address their hierarchical distribution, by employing the rank-size rule, Gibrat's law, and a primacy index. The implications of urban concentrations for GDP, banking system, FDI, civic amenities, and various urban externalities (such as pollution and spatial exclusion) are also examined. It shows that India's urban system, though it follows the rank-size rule, is huge and top-heavy. It follows also Gibrat's law of proportionate growth. Although India's cities collectively account for less than one third of the total population, they command more than three fourths of the country's GDP. Megacities have become congested, clogged, polluted, and also show significant social polarization. There is a gridlock situation for the cities, inhibiting their potential for becoming effective economic and social change sites. The top-heavy character of India's urban system also adversely impacts the balanced regional development of the country.

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SOME GENERALIZATIONS CONCERNING PRIMATE CITIES¹

Cited by 71 publications

References 7 publications

Urban Primacy: Reopening the Debate

Urban Primacy: Reopening the Debate

Seeds of Civilization: Bronze Age Rural Economy and Ecology in the Southern Levant

India’s Urban System: Sustainability and Imbalanced Growth of Cities

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SOME GENERALIZATIONS CONCERNING PRIMATE CITIES1

Cited by 71 publications

References 7 publications

Urban Primacy: Reopening the Debate

Urban Primacy: Reopening the Debate

Seeds of Civilization: Bronze Age Rural Economy and Ecology in the Southern Levant

India’s Urban System: Sustainability and Imbalanced Growth of Cities

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Product

Resources

About

SOME GENERALIZATIONS CONCERNING PRIMATE CITIES¹