Urban Economics 6 Systems of Cities

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Urban Economics (6)Systems of Cities

• Dr. Sieglinde Amelia Walter
• Ingolstadt 2008

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Contents
Systems of Cities

• Urban hierarchies and central place theory
• The Christaller approach
• The Lösch approach
• The rank-size rule

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System of Cities
Systems of Cities

• a set of interrelated subsystems nesting in a
  complex hierarchy of increasing scale upward from
  individual urban areas to a national urban system
  (Bourne 1975).

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The Spatial and Hierarchical Organization of the
Urban System
Systems of Cities
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The Christaller Model Assumptions
Systems of Cities

• Hierarchy of different goods
• Hierarchy of different-level urban centers
• Direct corrispondence between the hierarchical
  position of each good and the size of its spatial
  market area
• The relative size of the market area for a good
  of one level and a good of the level immediately
  below it is always a constant
• Direct corrispondence between hierarchical level
  of the urban center and the range of goods it
  supplied

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The Christaller Model of Central Places
Systems of Cities
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The Loschian Model The Firm's Market Area with
Spatial Competition
Systems of Cities
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The Spatial Distribution of the Markets of
Identical Firms
Systems of Cities
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The Rank-Size Rule (Zipf 1949)
Systems of Cities

• The size of a city is inversely proportional to
  its rank in the list of cities.

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Urban Economics

• sieglinde.walter_at_ku-eichstaett.de