Zipf's Law for Cities and Beyond: The Case of Denmark

Zipf's law for cities is one of the most conspicuous and robust empirical facts in the social sciences. It says that for most countries, the size distribution of cities must fit the power law: the number of cities with populations greater than S is inversely proportional to S. The present paper answers three questions related to Zipf's law: (1) does the Danish case refute Zipf's law for cities?, (2) what are the implications of Zipf's law for models of local growth?, and (3) do we have a Zipf's law for firms? Based on empirical data on the 61 largest Danish cities for year 2000, the answer to (1) is NO—the Danish case is not the exception which refutes Zipf's law. The consideration of (2) then leads to an empirical test of (3). The question of the existence of Zipf's law for firms is tested on a sample of 14,541 Danish production companies (the total population for 1997 with 10 employees or more). Based on the empirical evidence, the answer to (3) is YES in the sense that the growth pattern of Danish production companies follows a clean rank‐size distribution consistent with Zipf's law.     

Urban Segregation and Metropolitics in Latin America: The Case of Bogotá, Colombia

The patterns of spatial socioeconomic segregation in Latin American cities are changing rapidly as a result of suburbanization and metropolization. However, the political consequences of these urban spatial processes are not well understood. This article uses Orfield's framework of analysis to test the hypothesis that spatial segregation at the metropolitan level is driving political polarization between Latin American cities and their suburbs. With Bogotá as a testing ground, we look for evidence that the mechanisms described by Orfield are at play. We conclude that metropolitan spatial segregation does not drive metropolitan politics in Bogotá and explore some of the theoretical implications thereof.     

Unraveling the dynamic changes of high-speed rail network with urban development: Evidence from China

Previous studies have used complex network theory to examine the characteristics of China's High-Speed Rail (HSR). Nevertheless, little attention is paid to China's HSR network's dynamic evolution and the coevolution of node attributes and embedded structural characteristics. Our study builds China's HSR network using a complex network approach and spatial analysis technique to address this issue. Additionally, we employ a stochastic actor-oriented model (SAOM) to properly decompose the three types of effects on the generation of China's HSR network (i.e., network structure, attribute-based similarity, and exogenous control variables). This study discusses the underlying hypotheses and indicates that 3-cycles is a critical structural factor for the formation of China's HSR network. In terms of the effects of attribute-based similarity, cities with similar Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and geographical proximity are essential nodal drivers for the evolution of the HSR network. Notably, the administrative rank of cities exhibits a significantly negative driving force and a alter effect. These findings shed light on the interactive process of urban regional development and the dynamic evolution of the HSR network, assisting the central and local governments in enacting and implementing appropriate HSR planning policies, ultimately achieving effective urban planning and management.     

Making ‘Global Sydney’: Spatial Imaginaries,Worlding and Strategic Plans

This article critically examines the expression of global spatial imaginaries in urban policy and planning. Following recent calls to understand how the global is ‘made up' in and through cities, we argue for the usefulness of Roy and Ong's concept of ‘worlding’. By analysing how strategic spatial plans envisage ‘Global Sydney’, the article reveals a constitutive spatial imaginary informed by the articulation of three interrelated elements: global city standards, comparative techniques and extra‐local policy models. Unpacking how cities are selectively worlded through spatial imaginaries, the article advances an approach to urban globality as actively cultivated and differentially produced.     

Experiences of Urban Militarism: Spatial Stigma,Ruins and Everyday Life

A key question in urban sociology is how people interpret the urban environment. At a time when cities are increasingly militarized, this question is particularly important for understanding how militarism impacts urban life. However, urban sociologists have not addressed how people experience militarized environments. This article turns to this question by considering the case of Lydda‐Lod, an Israeli city that has been demographically and physically transformed by war, displacement and securitization. Drawing on Wacquant's sociology of spatial stigma and adding insights from works on emotions in (post‐)conflict cities, I examine how poor Palestinians think and feel about the surveilled districts where they live within the city's broader landscape of ruins. I show how the Israeli military, security and policing agencies have collectively produced spatial stigmatization of these districts. I discuss how Palestinians respond to this spatial stigma by attaching a sense of worthlessness to their districts. However, this reproduction of spatial stigma is punctuated by expressions of care for the built environment and by a desire to revalorize collective Palestinian life in the city. I conclude by discussing how a perspective on militarized cities focused on everyday responses to militarism and attentive to marginalities enriches urban sociology and urban studies more generally.     

Geography of immigrant clusters in global cities: a case study of San Francisco

Cities throughout the world – particularly global cities – are becoming increasingly heterogeneous as a result of international migration movements. During the past three decades, the influx of immigrants into metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco has increased demand for housing, exacerbating the already tight housing markets in these cities. This article focuses on the spatial distribution and housing conditions of immigrants in San Francisco using primarily the 2000 US census data on population and housing down to the census tract level. Building on past research on ethnic enclaves and communities, this article applies spatial analysis methods to identify clusters where Chinese, Filipino and Mexican households – the largest foreign‐born groups in San Francisco – live. The article argues that different immigrant groups show distinct spatial clustering patterns and that there are significant variations in housing outcomes for immigrants within and outside of ethnic clusters. These differences are largely in the direction predicted by the spatial assimilation theory. However, findings such as the high incidence of homeownership within Chinese and Filipino clusters suggest that contemporary immigrants do not necessarily view ethnic clusters as transitory. These findings help to confirm other recent studies showing that immigrants are now spatially clustered in ways that may no longer fit theoretical models derived from the settlement patterns of late nineteenth‐century immigrants. The article contributes to literature concerned with ethnic clusters in US inner cities and the housing conditions of immigrants in global cities. A travers le monde, les villes, surtout les villes planétaires, sont de plus en plus hétérogènes à cause des mouvements migratoires internationaux. Au cours des trois dernières décennies, l'afflux de migrants vers les zones métropolitaines comme New York, Los Angeles et San Francisco a accru la demande de logements, resserrant les marchés déjàétroits dans ces grandes villes. L'article s'attache à la répartition spatiale et aux conditions de logement des immigrants à San Francisco à partir, essentiellement, de données provenant du recensement américain 2000 sur la population et l'habitat par régions sociales. S'inspirant de recherches antérieures sur les communautés et enclaves ethniques, l'étude applique les méthodes d'analyse spatiale pour identifier les regroupements de foyers chinois, philippins et mexicains (groupes d'étrangers les plus nombreux à San Francisco). Les différents groupes d'immigrants présentent des modèles d'agrégation spatiale distincts et leur logement varie considérablement selon que les populations se trouvent dans ou hors des regroupements ethniques. Ces divergences traduisent largement l'orientation prévue par la théorie de l'assimilation spatiale. Toutefois, des résultats tels que le poids de l'accession à la propriété dans les groupes chinois et philippins suggèrent que les immigrants actuels ne jugent pas forcément ces regroupements ethniques comme transitoires. Ainsi sont corroborées d'autres études récentes montrant que les immigrants sont désormais regroupés dans l'espace selon des modèles qui ne correspondent plus aux types théoriques dérivés des schémas d'implantation de la fin du dix‐neuvièmesiècle. L'article contribue au débat sur les regroupements ethniques dans les quartiers déshérités américains et sur les conditions de logement des immigrants dans les villes planétaires.     

Parcel distribution timetabling problem

In this paper we propose a model to generate an effective timetable for time definite parcel distribution companies operating a hierarchical hub-and-spoke network. The model, referred to as parcel distribution timetabling problem, provides the departure times from each serviced city and each servicing facility in order to minimize the travel times of all shipments from their origin cities to their destination cities. Although the problem is faced by every parcel distribution company, it is rarely addressed in the literature. There is no evidence that parcel distribution companies, including the international ones, are developing operational research models in generating their timetables. The application of the model to a real-world case led to a decrease of more than 11% in the average travel time of the shipments. The company was even more delighted by the rapidity of the model in generating the timetable; this task that used to take weeks is decreased to just minutes.     

Policy spillover and regional linkage characteristics of the real estate market in China's urban agglomerations

The main purpose of this study is to determine the spillover effect of real estate regulatory policies released by core cities on the surrounding cities in major urban agglomerations based on regional linkage characteristics of China's real estate market. In this study, real estate transaction data of 157 cities were selected from 11 major urban agglomerations. Agglomeration's housing transaction volatility and spillover effect caused by the core city's regulatory policies were simulated by integrating spatial and temporal analysis model, event analysis, and symbolic time series analysis. The findings showed that (1) the regional linkage of the real estate market in the Harbin–Changchun and Middle–South Liaoning, Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and West Side of the Straits agglomerations were remarkably tight and the core cities' policy spillover effect was significant, of which the house purchase limitation and credit limitation policies had the widest influence; (2) the regional linkage of the real estate market in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei agglomeration, Shandong Peninsula, Guanzhong Plain, and Chengdu–Chongqing agglomerations was relatively weaker, but the core cities' policies of market regulation and taxation had certain spillover effect; (3) there were significant differences in the spillover effects of different types of policies in different urban agglomerations; (4) generally, the core cities' policy spillover often reduced the changing characteristics of the real estate market and made it more ordered with more certainty in the whole agglomeration, with the exception of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, West Side of the Straits, and Chengdu–Chongqing agglomerations.     

Impact of high-speed railway on urban resilience in China: Does urban innovation matter?

Based on calculating the urban resilience index from five aspects of economy, society, institutions, infrastructure, and ecology by adopting the entropy method, this study applies the time-varying DID model to systematically examine HSR's impact on China's urban resilience, on basis of which its heterogeneities and the mediating effect of urban innovation are also quantified. The findings reveal that: (1) HSR can significantly promote China's urban resilience, as supported by various robustness tests. (2) HSR can significantly improve economic and institution resilience of cities, but does not play a significant role on social resilience and infrastructure resilience, and has a negative effect on ecological resilience. (3) The driving effects of HSR on the resilience of core cities, large cities, and non-resource-based cities are more significant. (4) Urban innovation is an important channel through which HSR impacts urban resilience. The conclusions of this study can offer useful insights for China's future HSR planning and resilient cities construction.     

Relating a City's History and Geography with Bourdieu: One Hundred Years of Spatial Distinction in Tel Aviv

This article advances a conceptualization of spatial distinction that, following Bourdieu, relates principles of division in ‘social space’ with formations of segregation in urban space. It applies this interpretive framework to concisely narrate the one hundred years' history of spatial distinction in Tel Aviv. Analyzing five moments in the city's development, it focuses on a dominant principle of distinction in each period and its ensuing segregations: predominantly ethno‐national (Jewish–Arab) distinction that established Tel Aviv in opposition to Jaffa at the turn of the twentieth century; nuanced ethno‐class distinction that shaped the city's rapid growth in the 1920s–30s and created an elaborate socio‐spatial hierarchy of neighborhoods; institutionalized distinction that governed the collective supply of housing in the 1930s–40s, evolving into a complex system of housing classifications; ‘distinction‐by‐distance’ through exclusive suburbanization and the emergence of a metropolitan scale of distinction in the 1950s–70s; and a ‘back‐to‐the‐center’ strategy of distinction by way of gentrification in the 1980s–90s and within gated residential enclaves at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. Through this concise history, various principles, mechanisms and scales of spatial distinction are elaborated upon, as a way to think about the socially constructed, historically contingent and continuously changing divisions and segregations in cities.     

基于空间非均衡视角的"大城市病"成因研究

本文通过多次实验,选取空间自相关程度最为显著的距离阈值,设定空间权重矩阵,使得空间权重矩阵更加符合我国城市分布特征,充分体现人口在城市集聚过程中的空间自回归机制,并结合广义空间模型和广义空间两阶段最小二乘法,实证探查“大城市病”成因,研究发现:就业机会、流通经济布局和公共服务的空间非均衡是导致人口过度集聚,从而引致“大城市病”的显著相关因素,并针对以上因素给出了对策建议。     

The life-length of banknotes*

Abstract With the aid of the Bank's banknote sorting system the issue and subsequent withdrawal of f 25–banknotes on three varieties of paper have been recorded for two-and-a-half years. The aim was to measure the durability of the three paper varieties in circulation. The results of this second trial with f 25–banknotes confirm the statistical model developed previously for the first trial with f 100–banknotes. GRESHAM's Law is equally not applicable, neither to f 25–banknotes nor to f 100–banknotes. A two-parameter gamma distribution fits the cumulative fraction of banknotes withdrawn reasonably well.     

湖南省的城镇空间布局

本文针对湖南省城镇分布现状及存在问题 ,提出湖南省未来城镇空间布局应充分考虑高速公路的联结作用 ,采取点轴布局模式 ,以更好地带动湖南省城镇地域系统的发展 ,并就优化城镇空间布局的政策措施提出了相应的建议     

The Rank-Size rule in the absence of growth

This paper makes a discovery in comparing Steindl's model of a growing system of cities to Champernowne's model of a stationary one: While the so-called Pareto coefficient (a measure of size concentration) of the city size distribution for a growing system is determined by the ratio of the average rate of growth in the sizes of cities to the rate of growth in the number of cities, and is thus independent of the variance in growth rates across cities, and also, to a large degree, independent of their behavior over time, the coefficient is directly proportional to this variance in the case of stationarity. This has interesting policy implications: As long as the urban system is growing as a whole, efforts to reduce rates of growth in high-growth areas and to raise them in low-growth areas, i.e., to reduce the dispersion in growth rates across cities, will have no effect on the shape of the size distribution of cities. However, if the system were to cease to grow, these same efforts would have a potentially great effect on this distribution. This suggests that the customary pessimism expressed by students of urban phenomena in the efficacy of legislation to alter the form of the size distribution of cities, a pessimism induced by their observation of the persistence of the current distribution over time in many countries, is primarily due to the circumstances in which these systems are observed, i.e., in periods of growth and expansion.     

环渤海中心城市服务业的结构及特征

以环渤海区域地级及以上城市为主要考察对象,以从业人员为主要指标,分析了该区域中心城市服务业发展现状、内部结构差异及服务业发展的空间分异特征。研究认为,近年来环渤海区域服务业发展迅速,服务业布局呈现梯度化空间分布特征;服务产业,尤其是消费性服务集中于行政级别较高的中心城市。研究还发现,环渤海区域服务业存在城市之间服务产业发展不平衡、部分区位条件优越的城市服务业发展滞后以及山东半岛和辽东半岛部分中心城市服务职能有待强化等问题。在此基础上,提出了根据服务业内部各行业特点和城市的发展条件、遵循区别对待原则确定具体服务行业的发展重点和优先顺序等对策措施。     

Spatial dependence,agglomeration externalities and the convergence of carbon productivity

By combining the extended slack based measurement (SBM) model directed distance function and the meta-constrained production function to measure China's carbon productivity, this paper studies the spatial spillover effects and convergence characteristics of carbon productivity. According to the results, carbon productivity showed obvious viscosity and spatial dependence in adjacent regions. China's carbon productivity had spatial conditional β-convergence and club convergence effects. Specifically, agglomeration externalities constituted an important mechanism for increasing carbon productivity and realizing the convergence thereof. Different agglomeration forms under different agglomeration degrees corresponded to different carbon productivity levels; with an increase in the degree of agglomeration, the emission reduction effect of specialized agglomeration diminished, while that of diversified agglomeration increased. Furthermore, depending on suitable agglomeration degrees, the emission reduction effect of specialized agglomeration could coexist with that of diversified agglomeration. In terms of regional distribution, in East China, both specialized agglomeration and diversified agglomeration presented relatively significant emission reduction effects. In contrast, in Central China and West China, only specialized agglomeration showed a weak emission reduction effect.     

AN ECONOMIC POLICY HYPOTHESIS OF METROPOLITAN GROWTH CYCLES: A Reflection on the Recent Rejuvenation of Tokyo*

Rejecting the simplistic life-cycle hypothesis of cities put forth by Klassen and Paelinck, this paper advances a new hypothesis for the cyclical movements of urban growth that have taken place on a world-wide scale. The recent rejuvenation of major industrialized cities is largely attributed to the shift in the government's economic policies toward a smaller government, supported by the existence of economies of scale in large cities. The paper closely examines Tokyo's recent rejuvenation and shows how the government's conservative economic policies of the 1980's helped reverse the declining trend of the previous decade.     

INVESTMENT PATTERNS AND THE COMPETITIVENESS OF GREEK REGIONS

This paper aims at mapping and analyzing the determinants of industrial activity in Greek regions in order to assess current investment patterns. For this purpose, we estimate a conditional logit model of 226 new established firms for 1996 and 1997. Results give interesting insights that are likely of particular importance to regional policy makers. Noteworthy is the spatial concentration of firms in different prefectures while the large metropolitan cities, Athens and Thessalonica, although with declining shares, prevail as the dominant hosts. European regional policy seems to enhance firms'entry via its effect on economic development variables, in contrast with the Greek Development Law, which turns out non-influential.     

Validating an agent-based model of the Zipf׳s Law: A discrete Markov-chain approach

This study discusses the validation of an agent-based model of emergent city systems with heterogeneous agents. To this end, it proposes a simplified version of the original agent-based model and subjects it to mathematical analysis. The proposed model is transformed into an analytically tractable discrete Markov model, and its city size distribution is examined. Its discrete nature allows the Markov model to be used to validate the algorithms of computational agent-based models. We show that the Markov chains lead to a power-law distribution when the ranges of migration options are randomly distributed across the agent population. We also identify sufficient conditions under which the Markov chains produce the Zipf׳s Law, which has never been done within a discrete framework. The conditions under which our simplified model yields the Zipf׳s Law are in agreement with, and thus validate, the configurations of the original heterogeneous agent-based model.