City-Size Distribution: The Evolution of Theory, Evidence, and Policy in Regional Science

Abstract

This chapter reviews the extensive thinking on city-size distributions between 1935 and 1995. This chapter sheds light on many issues that are of fundamental importance to regional science, but especially the nature of national development and the extent of interregional inequality. Between 1935 and 1955, the city-size literature clarified between primate and rank-size distributions (Zipf 1949) and demonstrated how a steady state could arise through Gibrat’s law of proportionate effect (Herbert Simon). Between 1955 and 1975, the city-size literature incorporated thinking from central place theory in order to provide the earliest hierarchy models (Martin Beckmann); clarified how settlement systems evolved through space and over time (Richard Morrill); connected the issue of primacy to national development (Brian Berry); and made use of the concept of hierarchy in the policy discussion of settlement systems (Gerald Hodge). The final time period, between 1975 and 1995, brought forth a maturing of these different perspectives, where primacy was found to be determined by a wide mix of social and economic factors (Ronald Moomaw), simulation models became much more complex (Roger White), and hierarchy models were articulated both with the economic base concept and with mainstream microeconomics (Carol Taylor).