Urban Hierarchy Research Articles

Nuevas aproximaciones a la historia urbana de Italia: el Renacimiento temprano

La interpretación de la historia de la Baja Edad Media y la temprana Edad Moderna de Italia ha estado desde el siglo pasado fuertemente influida por la dicotomía norte-sur y los modelos centro-periferia. Este artículo desmonta los argumentos del dualismo a través de una caracterización de la crisis bajomedieval que destaca los factores de integración y a la vez de diferenciación regional en las economías europeas. A continuación, realiza un exhaustivo recorrido por la dinámica de la urbanización de Italia entre finales del siglo XIV y comienzos del XVI para señalar la profunda transformación ocurrida en los ejes y las jerarquías urbanas en un período de descenso neto de la urbanización. La variable institucional se sitúa en el eje de los cambios y a su vez refleja en su variedad la fuerte diferenciación regional experimentada por Italia al hilo de la construcción de los Estados territoriales.

Urban Sprawl in Inner Medium-Sized Cities: The Behaviour in Some Spanish Cases Since the Beginning of the 21st Century

The processes of urban sprawl that have been present over the past two decades in the different strata of the urban hierarchy have also affected, as a whole, medium-sized cities. The urban sprawl has been particularly pronounced during the period of expansive Spanish urbanism, in which many of the municipalities situated in the vicinities of large cities have been affected by major demographic dynamics and (sub)urbanisation development outside the traditional city limits. Sometimes, these processes have been greater than the nearby cities in the urban area where they are inserted. In this study, we examine the general mechanisms identified within an urban crown size (within a radius of 30 km) and at the scale of the municipality, based on an analysis of two distinct periods: one linked to a strong growth dynamic (2000–2008), and another related to subsequent crisis (2009–2016). A group of 23 inner medium-sized Spanish cities has been analysed, taking into account the trends of the population, the surface of unbuilt plots, the built surface, and the amount of housing. We have identified the typologies of their respective urban areas over the two periods considered.

The contribution of football clubs to the international projection of cities: a causal analysis based on German and English cases

The study analyses the extent to which the presence of a football club with an international projection increases the visibility and global projection of the city that it belongs to. It specifically focuses on knowledge of a selection of English and German cities. The analysis is based on probabilistic methodology and uses data from surveys completed by Catalan university students. Our findings demonstrate that cities with famous football clubs are better known than others from the same country and similar urban hierarchy. Moreover, the best-known cities are also the ones where football has the greatest weight in the overall knowledge of the city. Furthermore, the study also demonstrates that the inclusion of the name of the city in that of the football club becomes a key factor for determining the intensity of the previously mentioned effects.

The urban hierarchy at the delta of the Amazon River and the importance of small cities

Abstract The main goal of this paper is to present an evaluation of the urban hierarchy of a sub-region of the Brazilian Amazon Region, the Delta of the Amazon River. We analyzed the Delta cities regarding their ability to provide access to basic services (infrastructure) and employment to their residents, or even the residents of adjacent towns. The results were produced using data from: census, the Annual List of Social Information (RAIS), the number of industrial establishments (Federation of Industries of the State of Pará - FIEPA), the year the cities were founded, distance from the cities to the state capitals, and the number of bank branches. A general index was created, and it allowed defining to what degree the cities were connected, and proposing an urban hierarchy at the Delta Region. Regardless of different historical processes, age, size and importance in the Regional Urban Network, the cities of the Delta can be compared in terms of infrastructure available to their population. At the same time, small cities are experiencing significant population growth, and expansion of urban areas without investment proportional to their needs.

Urban Growth Evaluation by Coupling Descriptive Analysis and Zipf’s Rank-Size Model in Parakou (Benin)

Parakou occupies a strategic place in the socio-economic development of Benin due to its geographical position. Based on the Urban Land Registry data, and census data from the National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics coupling with the statistical description and adjustment to the distribution Zipf rank-size model, allowed us to describe the urban hierarchy on the scale of Parakou localities over the period 1979 to 2013. The changes in densities of population occupation per decade show a tendency to sprawl from the 2000s and linear and quadratic adjustments are satisfactory (linear: 0.81≤ R² ≤ 0.95 and quadratic: 0.95 ≤ R2 ≤ 0.98) and significant at 1% (P-value = 0.000) to 88%. The linear coefficients of Pareto are continuously decreasing (ǀαǀ = 1.749 to ǀαǀ = 0.831 between 1979 and 2002), and reflect that the weight of big cities keeps an influence on small and medium-sized cities over this period, while a slight increase was observed in the courtyard of the decade from 2002 to 2013 (ǀαǀ = 0.861 in 2013) and shows the effect of the creation of new districts with the gradual loss of the influence of the old districts of the central core. The results suggest that population growth of the city is occurred with urban sprawl controlled by exogenous factors of infrastructures or land type. Managements of spatial planning structures are then arrested in the guidelines to provide land for the human impacts control on natural resources of watersheds.

Städtische Dynamik und weltweite Vielfalt: von der Theorie zur Modellbildung

The evolution of cities is a major issue because it affects the majority of the world population. It is in cities that solutions must be invented to solve the problems of sustainable development in terms of quality of life, of resource management, of intelligent integration of technological and cultural innovation and of social cohesion, at the local and the global scales. The diversity of cities is such that it might seem difficult to develop a scientific knowledge about them for sustaining policies. However, cities have long been interdependent and organized into systems of cities; they co-evolve through the multiple relationships which connect them into networks for the exchange of materials, investments, people or information. These interdependencies drive and constrain the evolution of each city in the system, according to a complex set of dynamics which exhibit patterns regular enough to help understanding and even predicting certain trends. For anticipating urban future, geographers have since long developed a theoretical framework relying on the observation, not only of the few megacities global stars but of thousands of cities and towns taken in a variety of world regions. These empirical observations were scrutinized through analytic methods inspired from the dynamics of complex systems and data and processes are now integrated into computer simulation models which are able to reconstruct the stylized facts and trends observed. This consolidates an evolutionary theory of urban hierarchies according to which the urban geo-diversity is a necessary condition for continuing the major function of cities and towns that are altogether remarkably efficient socio-spatial adaptors on the long run in the human history.

The age dimensions of urban socio‐spatial change

AbstractContemporary societal transformations are marked by particular age dynamics and shifting fault lines between generations. Growing socio‐economic divides between young and old have been singled out as a key concern, for example, on the housing market. However, age is not very often explicitly integrated into analyses of urban socio‐spatial inequality. This paper makes an effort to do so, drawing on the case study of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Results highlight how age factors into urban socio‐spatial change. First, by placing age centre stage, it shows how aggregate urban upgrading comes about. Some age groups—those in their midthirties and over sixty—drive urban upgrading, whereas the 50‐to‐60 age group has become poorer, dampening upgrading. Second, geographies of affluence and poverty differ substantially between age groups. Whereas affluent elderly concentrate in the most privileged areas, and increasingly so, younger generations move to neighbourhoods lower on the urban hierarchy. Third, at any one point, multiple generations are involved in driving neighbourhood gentrification. Affluent elderly drive further gentrification in already affluent areas, wheras younger adults do so in lower status neighbourhoods.

From Manufacturing to Advanced Services: The (Uneven) Rise and Decline of Mediterranean City-Regions

Uneven changes in the global urban hierarchy have given way to new forms of relationships between urban and rural areas based on complementarities, cooperative and specialized exchange of services and goods, abandoning the additive processes of growth guided by industrialization and urbanization. Representing a distant notion from traditional concepts in regional studies such as 'compact cities' or 'suburbs', 'gravitation' or 'hierarchy', the 'city-region' paradigm has stimulated different visions to be recomposed within the 'sustainability' framework. With global changes, the 'mega-city region' model has starting to take the lead in the development of contemporary urban agglomeration. In this study, considerations over the emergence of this urban model in the Mediterranean region will be presented to investigate the relationship between dispersed urbanization and consolidating southern European city-regions. While Mediterranean cities have been considered for long time as ‘ordinary’ cities, rather distant from the 'globalized' northern urban models, most of these cities are characterized by distinctive socioeconomic traits possibly open to competition and globalization. The present contribution describes the emergence of a Mediterranean urban area, Athens, as a new 'city-region' in the context of urbanization processes in Greece and in the Mediterranean basin as a whole. One of the clearest indications of urban competitiveness amongst emerging and established large city-regions is the fight for hosting mega-events. The final objective of the study is to understand how the efforts for increasing urban competitiveness are impacting new forms of city-regions, mainly based on low-density settlements reflecting discontinuous urbanization.

The Cyborg Flâneur: Reimagining Urban Nature through the Act of Walking

The concept of the “writer flâneur”, as developed by Walter Benjamin, sought to make sense of the seemingly chaotic nineteenth century city. While the flâneur provided a way for new urban structures to be ordered, it was also a transgressive act that involved engaging with urban spaces in new ways. In the contemporary city, where spaces are now heavily controlled and ordered, some members of the city’s socio-ecological community suffer as a result of idealistic notions of who and what belongs in the city, and how we must behave as urban citizens. Many of these ideals emerge from nineteenth century conceptions of the city in contrast to the country (Williams). However, a reimagining of the flâneur can allow for new transgressions of urban space and result in new literary imaginaries that capture the complexity of urban environments, question some of the more damaging processes and systems, offer new ways of connecting with the city, and propose alternative ways of living with the non-human in such places. With reference to the work of Debra Benita Shaw, Rob Shields and Donna Haraway, I will examine how the urban walking figure might be reimagined as cyborg, complicating boundaries between the real and imagined, the organic and inorganic, and between the human and non-human (Haraway Cyborgs). I will argue that the cyborg flâneur allows for new ways of writing and reading the urban and can work to reimagine the city as posthuman multispecies community. As one example of cyborg flânerie, I look to the app Story City to show how a writer can develop new environmental imaginaries in situ as an act of resistance against the anthropocentric ordering of the city. This article intends to begin a conversation about the ethical, political and epistemological potential of cyborg flânerie and leads to several questions which will require further research.

How do various types of regions attract creative industries? Comparison of metropolitan, old industrial and rural regions in Czechia

In this paper we aim to describe and explain current spatial distribution of creative industries in Czechia. We ask to what extent are localisation patterns of creative industries influenced by specific local contexts. Therefore, we employed a typology of regions (close to local labour areas) that may explain spatial distribution of creative industries: metropolitan cores, metropolitan hinterlands, old industrial regions, urban and rural regions. We use general linear models combining the regional typology as a fixed factor and four covariates – employment density, density of cultural industries, mean firm size in creative industries and diversity of economic activities. We employed horizontal localisation quotient of regional employment in creative industries for the year 2014 as a dependent variable. Our main finding is that the regional typology explains a higher share of variability of the dependent variable (relative specialisation in creative industries) than any other explanatory variable. However, after exclusion of metropolitan cores, the model lost a significant amount of its explanatory power. Urban size/density and position in urban hierarchy are the key explanatory variables. We found only limited empirical evidence that regional contexts affect localisation of CI – regions of similar population/economic size do not differ significantly in spatial concentration of CI.

The The impact of territorial policies on the distribution of the creative economy: tracking spatial patterns of innovation in Slovenia

The creative economy as an alternative pathway for industrial decline was first introduced into practice in metropolitan regions of the Global North. Since then, it has gradually spread out to other highly urbanized areas of the Global South and transitional areas such as post-socialist European countries. Numerous studies tried to explain structural conditions and suggested policies to attract, retain and release creative potentials. However, the focus on promotion of the creative economy is still on large cities and sectoral policies by emphasizing economic, social and legislative issues of the creative labour. There is little evidence about how territorial policies shape the development of the creative economy, especially in medium-sized and small towns outside the reach of the agglomeration areas. The aim of this paper is to study the impact of territorial policies on the distribution of the creative economy in Slovenia as an example of the post-socialist country. By analysing spatial-temporal trends of patents, we track patterns of innovation between 1975 and 2014 in the urban system. A central focus is given to examine changes in urban hierarchy, i.e. relationships between Ljubljana as the capital and the only large city in the country, regional centres and small towns. The spatial-temporal analysis of patents granted in Slovenia confirmed the linkages between territorial innovation systems and policies. The main findings show that innovation has become more evenly distributed across space, which can be attributed to long tradition of polycentric spatial development in times of Yugoslavia and more recent territorial policies favouring further dispersion of the local self-government system in Slovenia.

Ethnic groups, urban places, and retail enterprise: the United States, 1900

ABSTRACTThis study proposes an entrepreneurship model that (1) uses sociological literature on ethnic stratification to develop a typology of subdominant, marginalized, subordinate, and outcast minority groups and (2) applies geographic principles to spatially define variation in entrepreneurial environments in terms of urban hierarchies, regional milieus, and hinterland centres. Examining retail enterprise, the study utilizes the interactionist approach, which holds that ethnic business differences result from an interplay of groups’ attributes (supply) and locations’ opportunity structures (demand). The study extends this approach by incorporating the mixed embeddedness concept, which stresses the importance of ethnic groups’ situation in broad social, political, and institutional contexts. Regression analyses of Census data for US cities in 1900 show why retail enterprise among outcast minorities is demand-side resistant, while retail enterprise among marginalized minorities is demand-side reactive. The model thus yields insights into how ethnic stratification and geographical positions interact to produce inequalities of ethnic entrepreneurship.

The elusive quest for balanced regional growth from Barlow to Brexit: Lessons from partitioning regional employment growth in Great Britain

AbstractThe British Government’s economic strategy for post‐Brexit Britain of achieving balanced regional growth by “driving growth across the whole country” echoes the objectives set by the Barlow Report of 1940. The regional policies that followed the Barlow Report were heavily influenced by papers written for the Commission by G D A (later Sir Donald) MacDougall. The first of these papers was included as an appendix to the report itself and introduced the shift‐share methodology to the analysis of regional employment growth, and subsequently shown to be flawed. The second paper considered the urban hierarchy and growth but was never fully developed. Consequently post‐war regional policy focussed on the contribution of industrial structure to employment growth without fully taking into account the urban hierarchy or regional locations of that employment. This article replaces the flawed shift‐share methodology with multifactor partitioning (MFP) and applies it to regional employment growth for the period 1971‐2012, a span of special interest because it largely coincides with British membership of the European Union (EU). The deficiencies in the second paper are addressed by introducing allometry to measure the employment growth of each region relative to that of Great Britain and then regression analysis to relate the allometries to distance from London. The results of the two sets of analyses highlight the need for a multiple‐factor, comprehensive, and integrated approach to regional policy and provide a benchmark against which to gauge the success of Britain's post‐Brexit policy of driving future growth across the whole country.

Urban-Rural Interactions and Role of Planned Small Townships in North Central Province, Sri Lanka: An Empirical Investigation of Urban Functions for Rural Development Approach

Whether a settlement may urban or rural it performs different roles as commercial, administrative centre for surrounding regions. Settlements act as central places representing a particular tier of the settlement hierarchy. The roles of planned small townships on regional development and the interactions between those settlements and the periphery have been studied by many geographers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. These centers are at the lower order of urban hierarchy, and they have been planned purposefully in many countries based on Urban Functions for Rural Development Approach (UFRD) to accelerate the development of backward areas. Since these centers trickle down innovation & modernization to rural neighborhoods the roles of these centers are diverse. In order to achieve fruitful results of settlement planning most effective and rational spatial and location planning strategy is essential to promote these small centers within well-articulated, integrated and balanced urban hierarchy. Based on this perspective main objective of the study was evaluating the multiple roles of planned small townships in North Central Province (NCP) for the development of their neighborhoods. Thus, Thambuttegama was selected as the study area. Demarcating the sphere of influence of selected functions and assess the existing functional structure of the township were among other specific objectives. The primary data on commercial and non-governmental functions of the township was collected through a structured questionnaire, field survey and through informal interviews. Secondary data and other related information were gathered from official statistics, other published materials, unpublished reports and internal records. Variations of the linkages and urban functions in spatial and temporal dimensions have been shown as maps, spider graphs using GIS based tools such as overlay, buffering through the study.

The impact of fiscal decentralization on urban agglomeration: Evidence from China

ABSTRACTIn the literature on urban studies, the size distribution of cities has been attributed to a random growth process where transportation externalities, congestion costs, and capital formation all play a crucial role. However, the classic economics models do not fully capture the impact of political institutions, particularly fiscal decentralization, on urban size distribution and fail to explain the political economy of urban agglomeration. As a major transitional economy, China’s economic decentralization, in conjunction with political control, portends a more complex environment for urban agglomeration and offers a new ground to analyze its institutional roots and policy implications. This study employs a panel data analysis of Chinese provinces between 1994 and 2015 and finds a pattern where more decentralized regions (provinces) are associated with stronger dominance of large cities for the whole study period. However, the period between 1994 and 2003 displays a different pattern wherein fiscal decentralization is negatively associated with urban agglomeration. Such phenomena can be attributed to the heated competition among local governments and the absorption of resources by dominant cities under the framework of fiscal decentralization in China, particularly in the recent years. More effective coordination is called upon to mitigate the unintended outcome of fiscal decentralization without proper control in shaping urban hierarchy in China and the findings provide lessons for other developing countries.

The Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Urban Agglomeration: Evidence from China

In the literature on urban studies, the size distribution of cities has been attributed to a random growth process where transportation externalities, congestion costs, and capital formation all play a crucial role. However, the classic economics models do not fully capture the impact of political institutions, particularly fiscal decentralization, on urban size distribution and fail to explain the political economy of urban agglomeration. As a major transitional economy, China’s economic decentralization, in conjunction with political control, portends a more complex environment for urban agglomeration and offers a new ground to analyze its institutional roots and policy implications. This study employs a panel data analysis of Chinese provinces between 1994 and 2015 and finds a pattern where more decentralized regions (provinces) are associated with stronger dominance of large cities for the whole study period. However, the period between 1994 and 2003 displays a different pattern wherein fiscal decentralization is negatively associated with urban agglomeration. Such phenomena can be attributed to the heated competition among local governments and the absorption of resources by dominant cities under the framework of fiscal decentralization in China, particularly in the recent years. More effective coordination is called upon to mitigate the unintended outcome of fiscal decentralization without proper control in shaping urban hierarchy in China and the findings provide lessons for other developing countries.

Integrating parametric and non-parametric multivariate analysis of urban growth and commuting patterns in a European metropolitan area

Mono-centric regions have experienced a progressive transformation towards polycentric structures. Transition to discontinuous and dispersed spatial configurations was particularly evident in formerly compact and dense European cities, as a result of increasingly complex commuting patterns. Under the hypothesis that central locations have a balanced rate of resident population to internal workers and attract workers from neighbouring places, a multivariate analysis of commuting patterns may reveal latent transformations of compact, mono-centric cities towards polycentrism and settlement scattering. A more comprehensive understanding of the intimate nature and implications of urban transitions taking place in the last decades in Athens (Greece), a representative metropolitan region in southern Europe, was carried out using census data analyzed through a framework integrating descriptive statistics and mapping, multivariate exploratory data analysis, non-parametric inference and regression models. The analytical framework was proposed with the aim to assess commuting patterns vis a vis urban hierarchy in a context of (more or less) de-centralized growth. Empirical results for the study area indicate the persistence of a bi-centric spatial structure gravitating on the central cities of Athens and Piraeus, with early formation of employment sub-centres and local-scale alterations of the mono-centric scheme as a result of discontinuous urban expansion. Exurban development was associated with the formation of self-contained sub-centres with an increasing proportion of workers in total resident population.

The Development of the African System of Cities

Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced high urban population growth over the past half century, dramatically reshaping the economic and spatial profile of the region. Simultaneously, this process has challenged the conventional view that countries urbanize alongside structural transformation, as urbanization in Africa has occurred despite low productivity gains in agriculture and very limited industrialization. While there are large household income gaps between urban and rural areas that induce migration, most cities have very high agricultural employment, blurring the connection between structural transformation and urbanization. Urban income premiums apply equally to farm and nonfarm families. Looking across the urban hierarchy, we discuss how high urban primacy presents problems for economic growth in Africa, how secondary cities are faltering with a lack of industrialization, and how growth of employment in tradable services may signal a different path to structural transformation.

Globalization and the skilled city

The location of economic activity both across and within countries has undergone dramatic shifts over the last five decades. Three key trends stand out. First, cross-country inequality has declined as many developing countries have grown rapidly. Second, economic geography within countries has instead grown more unequal in both the developed and the developing world. Third, within-country spatial disparities have grown mainly because of the disproportionate success of skilled cities. In this paper, I develop a model that jointly explains these patterns as a consequence of deepening international economic integration. My model explains the faster population and output growth of skilled cities, as well as their tendency to increase their initial skill advantage. Consistent with the evidence, my theory predicts a non-monotonic path of urban growth in developed countries. The model predicts a future shift in worldwide urban hierarchies as some developing-world cities overtake unskilled cities in industrialized countries along global supply chains.

Windows of global exchange: Dutch ports and the slave trade, 1600–1800

In 2008, Pierre Gervais contended that social and economic developments in the Atlantic were to be ascribed to an overwhelming European intervention in West Africa and the Americas. This article questions Gervais’s assumption by stressing how Europeans, West Africans and Americans – individuals and states – mutually influenced urban hierarchies and distributive hubs across three different continents, while arguing that these interactions and interconnections should be seen within a context of entangled histories. This contribution re-examines the Dutch experience of slave trade and shipping to assess the extent to which slave trading and shipping activities influenced port hierarchies in Europe, determined the organization of port hubs in West Africa and helped develop port structures in the Americas. This assessment is anchored in the data provided by the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, the collections of the Dutch West India Company and the Middleburg Commercial Company, and the notarial archives of Amsterdam and Rotterdam.