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作者

来源

CITIES,Vol.72,IssueA,P.201-205

语言

英文

关键字

Urban spatial structure; Employment cluster; Power law; Zipfs law; Urban growth; URBAN SPATIAL STRUCTURE; ZIPFS LAW; CITIES; ORIGINS; GROWTH; SPRAWL

作者单位

[Huang, Xiaoyan] Texas A&M Univ, Dept Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning, College Stn, TX 77840 USA. [Yost-Bremm, Christopher] San Francisco State Univ, Dept Finance, San Francisco, CA 94132 USA. Huang, XY (reprint author), Texas A&M Univ, Dept Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning, College Stn, TX 77840 USA. E-Mail: huan6281@tamu.edu

摘要

While theoretical reasoning emphasizes the complexity in metropolitan spatial structures, empirical efforts still focus on measuring spatial structures using employment centers. This paper measures a metropolitan spatial structure as a system of employment clusters for 361 metro areas in the United States. We apply a log-log model to assess the relationship between a cluster's size and its rank in a metro area. We found that among the largest 50 metro areas: (1) cluster sizes in a metro area follow a power law distribution and (2) larger metro areas tend to have evener spatial structures. The results suggest that policymakers can better predict urban growth locations and sizes; may invest in the largest clusters for the biggest economic payoffs; and should consider holistically all elements' (e.g., clusters, infrastructure, socioeconomic interactions) respective scaling laws in the city for its healthy urban growth.