Development And Structure Of An Urban System

The study of the evolution of an urban system raises a number of practical questions, as to the operational definition of the components of the system as well as to the incorporation of the factor time in the analysis. In this chapter the fo cuss is on the urban centres, the nodes of the urban system. One of the first pro blems to be solved now is the definition of such a node. It has been argued above that population size can be used as an approximation of the complexity of the spatial economic structure of a region. The acceptation of this notion makes it possible to study the urban system as a population system. The analysis of the population system over the study period will be pursued from this perspective. The study period, 1840-1970, covers completely the industrialization and urbanization phase which occurred during the industrial revolution. Over this period the spatial organizational structure of society evolved from a rural-commercial to wards a modern urban-industrial state. One of the major events in this period of change is the spatial redistribution of the population and the population growth. This process will be examined below at three levels of aggregation: (I) the popu lation distribution as one frequency distribution, (2) the population distribution dis aggregated into a n~ber of size classes, and (3) the individual cities which make up the population distribution.

This anthology of research is divided into five sections: definition of the urban system, structural characteristics, distribution of urban growth, transportation networks and interaction between cities, and the impact of growth on urban behaviour and the rural economy. Each section is preceded by the editors' comments. This is an excellent general reference on urbanization in Canada; it complements existing and largely American-based texts and should stimulate the student's interest in research on the unique Canadian urban milieu. (Department of Geography Research Publication 9)

This book investigates how the state intervenes in the urban system in China in the post-reform period. To do so, it constructs a conceptual framework based on the perspective of political hierarchy, suggesting that the state power is hierarchically organized in China’s urban system, leading to variations in urban government capacities among cities. The book reveals that the state has largely achieved the goal of its national urban system policy to “strictly control the scale of large cities” resulting in the under-development of the large cities if they are mainly developing according to the market force. However, this has become less influential with the advances toward a market economy. Further, state regulation and policies have reduced the gaps between cities at the top and bottom of the urban hierarchy. The book argues that the Urban Administrative System (UAS) is an important tool for the state to regulate urban system development, and the administrative level has a significant effect on urban growth performance. It contends that China’s urban system is strongly shaped by the omnipresent state through the UAS, which hierarchically differentiates between the urban growth processes. By controlling the administrative-level upgrading process, the state can prevent the size and number of cities from increasing too rapidly. This theoretical and empirical enquiry highlights the fact that the hierarchical power relations among cities and the resulting variations in urban government capacities are the key to understanding the role of the state in China’s urban system development in the post-reform period.

This book contains the contributions presented at the international workshop "The Dynamics of Complex Urban Systems: an interdisciplinary approach" held in Ascona, Switzerland in November 2004. Experts from several disciplines outline a conceptual framework for modeling and forecasting the dynamics of both growth-limited cities and megacities. Coverage reflects the various interdependencies between structural and social development.

A wide range of books on urban systems models are available today for the student of urban planning, geography, and economics. There are few, if any, books, however, that deal with integrated urban systems modeling from the operational viewpoint. The term "integrated" is used here in the same sense as the "general equilibrium", in contrast to such approaches as "sequential" or "partial equilibrium". In fact, the main thesis of this book is that the characteristics of ur ban activity that best distinguish it from rural activity are (1) the intensive use of urban land and (2) urban congestion. On this basis, models that are introduced in this book are three- dimensional in character and produce urban land use configurations with explicit optimal density of urban pro duction activities along with optimal levels of transportation congestion. It is also assumed that both public and private sectors play significant roles in shaping urban forms, structures, and functions in mixed economic systems. From this viewpoint, models developed in this book address two integrated decision-making procedures: one by the public sector, which provides urban infrastructure and public services, and the other one by the private sector, which uses provided infrastructure and public services in pursuing parochial interests.