Central place theory and the power law for cities

• Main Authors: HSU, Wen-Tai, ZOU XIN
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Central place theory; City sizes; Dynamic programming; Optimal city hierarchy; Zipf’s law; Behavioral Economics; Urban Studies and Planning
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2281; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/3280/viewcontent/Hsu_Zou2019_Chapter_CentralPlaceTheoryAndThePowerL.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This chapter provides a review of the link between central place theory and the power laws for cities. A theory of city size distribution is proposed via a central place hierarchy a la Christaller (1933) either as an equilibrium results or an optimal allocation. Under a central place hierarchy, it is shown that a power law for cities emerges if the underlying heterogeneity in economies of scale across good is regularly varying. Furthermore, we show that an optimal allocation of cities conforms with a central place hierarchy if the underlying heterogeneity in economies of scale across good is a power function.