Intermediate cities: a Mexico-China comparison
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17230/map.v8.i15.03Keywords:
Intermediate cities, Pareto distribution, Zipf’s law, urban GDP, Mexico, ChinaAbstract
Since their economic reforms, Mexico and China have registered a rapid urban expansion that modified the distribution of the urban system leading to a higher relative weight of the intermediate cities. This paper aims to examine the cities’ size dispersion for both economies in 2005 and 2010, respectively. The original and adjusted range-size equation is used in addition to an econometric methodology of Ordinary Least Squares of mobile ranges to estimate the Pareto coefficient. The size is defined according to each city’s GDP of at least 15, 000 inhabitants, instead of using the population as a measure of size, representing an original aspect of the paper. The hypothesis is a Pareto exponent lower than the unit. Estimates by subsamples suggest the existence of relatively equal size distribution of cities in both nations. As the main intermediate cities are grouped into comparatively equitable urban systems, it is accepted that the higher relative economic weight of intermediate cities explains the deviation of the exponent. The main limitation is the availability of data which means a disparity of years between economies.
Downloads
References
Arshad, S., Hu, S. Ashraf, B. (2018). Zipf’s law and city size distribution: A survey of the literatura and future research agenda. Physica A, 492:75-92.
Berry, B. y Okulicz, A. (2012). The City Size Distribution Debate: Resolution For US Urban Regions and Megalopolitan Areas. Cities, 29(1):17-23.
Brañas, P. y Alcalá, F. (2014). Entropía, aglomeración urbana y la Ley del “1”: Evidencia para las regiones españolas. XVII Encuentro de Economía Aplicada, Gran Canaria.
Cristelli, M.; Batty, M. y Pietronero, L. (2012). There is More Than a Power Law in Zipf. Scientific Reports, 2:812.
Fang, L., Li, P. y Song, S. (2017). China´s Development Policies and City Size Distribution: An Analysis Based on Zipf´S Law. Urban Studies, 52(2):2818-2834.
Fazio, G. y Modica, M. (2015). Pareto or Log-Normal? Best Fit and Truncation in the Distribution of All Cities. Journal of Regional Science, 55(5):736-756.
Gabaix, X. (1999). Zipf’s Law for Cities: An Explanation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114:739-767.
Gabaix, X. y Ioannides, Y. (2004). The Evolution of City Size Distribution. Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, 4:2431-2378.
Gabaix, X. e Ibragimov, R. (2012). Rank-1/2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 29(1):24-39.
Hofmann, A. y Wan, G. (2013). Determinants of urbanization. Asian Devolopment Bank: Manila.
Krugman, P. (1996). The self-organizing economy. Blackwell: Cambridge.
Lin, C., Cheng, M. y Yang, C. (2013). Zipf´s Law and City Size Distribution in China, Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, 25(3) :525-550.
ONU-Habitat. (2012). Estado de las ciudades de América Latina y El Caribe 2012. Rumbo a una nueva transición urbana. ONU-Habitat: Río de Janeiro.
Parr, J. y Jones, C. (1983). City Size Distributions and Urban Density Functions: Some Interrelationships. Journal of Regional Science, 23(3):283-307.
Peng, G. (2010). Zipf’s Law for Chinese Cities: Rolling Sample Regressions, Physica A, 389:3804-3813. Pérez, E., Guzmán, L. y Angulo, F. (2015). Distributions of City Sizes in Mexico During the 20th Century. Chaos, Solutions & Fractals, 73:64-70.
Rani, C. y Tripathi, S. (2016). Determinants of Urbanization in Different Size/Class Distribution of Cities/Towns in India. MPRA74757.
Rosen, K. y Resnick, M. (1980). The Size Distribution of Cities: An Examination of the Pareto Law and Primacy. Journal of Urban Economics, 8(2):165-186.
Rossi, E. y Wright, M. (2007). Urban Structure and Growth. Review of Economic Studies, 74(2):597-624.
Sobrino, J. (1999). Desarrollo urbano en México a partir de 1980. El Colegio Mexiquense: Toluca.
Soo, K. (2005). Zipf’s Law for Cities: A Cross-Country Investigation. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 35:239-263.
Veneri, P. (2016). City Size Distribution Across the OECD: Does the Definition of Cities Matter? Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 59:86-94.
Xu, Z. y Zhu, N. (2009). City Size Distribution in China: Are Large Cities Dominant? Urban Studies, 46(10):2159-2185.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
