Jacques François THISSE
About the Origin of Cities We provide a barebones framework that uncovers the circumstances which lead either to the emergence of equallyspaced and equallysized central places or to a hierarchy of central places. We show how these patterns reflect the preferences of agents and the efficiency of transportation and communication technologies. With one population of homogeneous individuals, the economy is characterized by a uniform distribution or by a periodic distribution of central places having the same size. The interaction between two distinct populations may give rise to a hierarchy of central places with one or several primate cities.
|
|