An Essay on Urban Economic Theory / Edition 1

by Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou, David Pines

Overview

Over the past thirty years, urban economic theory has been one of the most active areas of urban and regional economic research. Just as static general equilibrium theory is at the core of modern microeconomics, so is the topic of this book - the static allocation of resources within a city and between cities - at the core of urban economic theory.
An Essay on Urban Economic Theory well reflects the state of the field. Part I provides an elegant, coherent, and rigorous presentation of several variants of the monocentric (city) model - as the centerpiece of urban economic theory - treating equilibrium, optimum, and comparative statistics. Part II explores less familiar and even some uncharted territory. The monocentric model looks at a single city in isolation, taking as given a central business district surrounded by residences. Part II, in contrast, makes the intra-urban location of residential and non-residential activity the outcome of the fundamental tradeoff between the propensity to interact and the aversion to crowding; the resulting pattern of agglomeration may be polycentric. Part II also develops models of an urbanized economy with trade between specialized cities and examines how the market-determined size distribution of cities differs from the optimum.
This book launches a new series, Advances in Urban and Regional Economics. The series aims to provide an outlet for longer scholarly works dealing with topics in urban and regional economics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780792383437
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	12/31/1998
Series:	Advances in Urban and Regional Economics , #1
Edition description:	1999
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

1 Introduction.- 1.1 Scope of this Book.- 1.2 Fundamental Determinants of Spatial Structure.- 1.3 Historical Sketch.- 1.4 Book Outline.- 1.5 Appendix: Notation.- 1.6 References.- I The Monocentric City.- 2 Urban Equilibrium.- 3 Comparative Statics.- 4 Optimality of the Equilibrium Allocation.- 5 Extensions.- 6 Urban Housing.- 7 Transportation Infrastructure.- 8 From Monocentricity to Polycentricity.- II Polycentric Urban Structures.- 9 Agglomeration.- 10 The Monocentric City.- 11 Specialisation and Trade.- 12 Externalities, Nonconvexity and Agglomeration.- Author Index.

Editorial Reviews

Launches a series intended to provide an outlet for longer scholarly works dealing topics in urban and regional economies so that researchers will not find it necessary to cut down longer works for journal publication or undertake only those projects suitable to the shorter form. The first volume limits its scope to studies looking at issues of location and land use that are peculiar to cities, discussing both positive and normative aspects. Considers urban land use and rent theory, including the role of the centrifugal and centripetal market forces that generate them; the size and functional distribution of cities, generated by the interplay between those same two forces; and the economic geography of cities, which deals with the function, size, and distance between cities. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

Booknews

‘One of its achievements is its integration of the many contributions to the field into a manageable whole. An Essay on Urban Economic Theory is an important and impressive book. It may turn out to be the last word on the standard monocentric model, and its analysis of recent urban economic theory will hopefully facilitate further progress in the field.'
Journal of Economic Geography, 1 (2001)

From the Publisher