How big should cities be? In many countries, city sizes follow a remarkably regular pattern, known as the rank-size rule. According to this law, the biggest metropolis in a country will have roughly twice the population of its nearest rival; three times the population of the third-ranked city; and so on. Multiply a city’s rank by its population and the result will match the size of the biggest city. Some scholars believe the law is a statistical artefact, bereft of economic meaning. But others argue it has at least one strong implication. For the law to hold, small cities cannot grow systematically faster or slower than big ones. Speed must be largely independent of size.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Rank-size distribution
Rank-size distribution
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