Brian J. L. Berry

City Size Distributions and Economic Development

Students of urbanization have recognized two kinds of city size distributions: rank-size, 1 according to which the distribution of cities by population size class within countries is truncated lognormal;2 and primate, whereby a stratum of small towns and cities is dominated by one or more very large cities and there are deficiencies in numbers of cities of intermediate sizes. 3 Rank-size regularities have been associated with the existence of integrated systems of cities in economically advanced countries, 4 whereas primate cities have been associated

The Functional Bases of the Central Place Hierarchy

] T is obvious that urban centers differ, each from others. On the intuitive level one notion of difference is that of classes of urban centers. The wealth of descriptive terms available illustrates this notion: hamlet, village, town, city, metropolis, and the like. The present study is concerned with this problem of the differentiation of centers into broad classes. In particular it provides original and urgent evidence that a system of urban center classes exists of the type identified on an intuitive level above. There are several reasons for producing evidence of a system of classes (hereafter termed the hierarchical classsystem) at this time. A considerable body of theory relating to city size, function, and arrangement has accumulated. One of the implications of this theory is that there exists a hierarchical class-system.1 Ample evidence is available that other implications of this theory are valid, namely, that larger centers are functionally more complex than smaller centers, with this increasing functional complexity being accompanied by increasing size of the urban complementary region,2 and that by virtue of the differential provision of central functions there is interdependence between urban centers in the provision of central goods and services.3 On the other hand there has been no satisfactory evidence provided that would suggest that a hierarchical classsystem of centers does indeed exist. Despite many attempts at the assignment of towns to classes or grades4

The Factorial Ecology of Calcutta

Early traditions in urban ecology and social area analysis have recently converged in the approaches of factorial ecology. Comparison of factorial ecologies undertaken in recent years throughout the world enables a list of the necessary and sufficient conditions for ecological differentiation of urban subpopulation by social rank, stage in life Cycle, and ethnic segregation to be specified. At the same time, a more traditional comparative literature suggests widely different ecologies of pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial cities. This study attempts to initiative systematic cross-cultural ecological analysis by means of a structured factorial ecology of Calcutta. The investigation reveals an interpenetration of pre-industrial and industrial ecological components, consistent with notions that city is in some transitional developmental stage. At the same time, the changing significance of caste in ordering Indian society is revealed.

Residential Property Values in a Multinodal Urban Area: New Evidence on the Implicit Price of Location

The monocentric model predicts a housing price gradient from the central business district, and it follows that the extension of this model to account for modern multinodal metropolitan areas would predict housing price gradients from multiple employment centers. Empirical analysis using hedonic regression techniques for the estimation of price gradients in a multinodal context is limited. This study extends prior work by exploring nonlinear housing price gradients in a multinodal urban area with an unusually robust database of housing sales transactions, and using a geographic information system for spatial analysis. The results confirm the importance of non-CBD employment centers, a strong if asymmetric CBD price gradient, and significant nonlinear gradients from such other urban amenities as major retail sites and highways.

Elements of spatial structure : a quantitative approach

1. Introduction Part I. Static Aspects of Regional Structure: 2. Regions as combinatorial structures 3. Regions as ordered series 4. Regions as surfaces Part II. Dynamic Aspects of Regional Structure: 5. Spatial comparison of time series: a framework 6. Spatial comparison of time series: I. Contagious processes 7. Spatial comparison of time series: II. Unemployment in South-West England Part III. Autocorrelation and Forecasting: 8. Spatial autocorrelation 9. The analysis of regional patterns by nearest-neighbour methods 10. Regional forecasting Appendices.

Ghetto expansion and single-family housing prices: Chicago, 1968-1972

Abstract Analysis of selling prices of single-family homes in the City of Chicago during the period 1968–1972 confirms that, controlling for structure and other characteristics, price levels and rates of price increase were lower in black than in white neighborhoods, and that blacks were willing to pay more to move into white neighborhoods but whites showed an aversion to living in changing neighborhoods or those contiguous to black areas. Differences in price changes at the white-Latino interface indicate that the most general influence on levels and changes is neighborhood filtering among submarkets segmented by income, race, and other characteristics, but that arbitrage mechanisms must be invoked in the case of the white-black interface.

Migration reversals in perspective: the long-wave evidence.

Although the pattern of polarization reversal reported by Vining and Pallone in the 1970s and the re-emergence of core-ward net migration that they now report for the 1980s are problematic if viewed from the perspective of a short-term time horizon, they are easily understandable in a long-wave context. Evidence is provided for 55-year waves of urbanward migration, each of which reached its nadir during the nations major stagflation crises. The periodic repetitions of the phenomena described by Vining and Pallone suggest the relevance of the interpretations provided by long-wave theory.

Studies of highway development and geographic change

RESEARCH STUDIES ARE CONDUCTED ON HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENTS AS A PART OF THE SETTING WITHIN THE BROAD CONTEXT OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL STRUCTURE OF OUR SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC SYSTEM. THE STUDIES ARE NEEDED TO GUIDE TAXATION POLICIES AND PROGRAMS. ASPECTS OF EMERGING PATTERNS OF URBANIZATION, RESOURCE UTILIZATION, AND LAND USES ARE EVALUATED. SAMPLE STUDIES ARE CONDUCTED ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL ORGANIZATION OF OUR ECONOMIC LIFE, THE PLACE OF HIGHWAYS WITHIN THIS ORGANIZATION AND THE INFLUENCES OF HIGHWAY CHANGE. THE PLACE OF TRANSPORTATION IN THE STRUCTURE OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES IS DISCUSSED AS WELL AS THE BENEFITS OF HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT. THE SENSITIVITY OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS TO MAJOR HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS IS ANALYZED. A REVIEW OF IMFORMATION IS PRESENTED ON MOVEMENT TO OBTAIN GOODS AND SERVICES AND ON ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS IN RESPONSE TO DEMANDS FOR MULTIPLE-SHOPPING OPPORTUNITIES. THE ARRANGEMENTS OF SUPPLYING CENTERS AND TRIBUTARY AREAS AND THE SENSITIVITY OF THESE AREAS TO CHANGES IN TRANSPORTATION ARE ANALYZED. MEDICAL SERVICES WERE CHOSEN FOR SPECIFIC ANALYSIS BECAUSE OF THE AVAILABILITY OF DATA. THE ANALYSIS PERMITS CONCLUSIONS REGARDING CHANGES IN SERVICE AREAS AND SUPPLYING POINTS AND BENEFITS TO SUPPLIERS AND CONSUMERS OF MEDICAL SERVICES.

Urbanization and Counterurbanization in the United States

Urbanization, the process of population concentration, has been succeeded in the United States by counterurbanization, a process of population deconcentration characterized by smaller sizes, decreasing densities, and increasing local homogeneity, set within widening radii of national interdependence. This article reviews this shift, the means by which a national society is producing a national settlement system.

City classification handbook : methods and applications

A tedious and, on the whole, disappointing book, if one is looking for any novel contribution of classification methods to urban sociology or to the practice of urban planning in this country. The group responsible for this handbook met in Chicago, under the sponsorship of the International City Management Association, to develop a new approach to city classification and one that would help those responsible for urban management capitalize on the ever-increasing volume of census and other official information