Scaling Beyond Cities
City population size is a crucial measure when trying to understand urban life. Many socio-economic indicators scale superlinearly with city size, whilst some infrastructure indicators scale sublinearly with city size. However, the impact of size also extends beyond the city’s limits. Here, we analy...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Physics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2022.858307/full |
| _version_ | 1811290417570775040 |
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| author | Rafael Prieto Curiel Rafael Prieto Curiel Carmen Cabrera-Arnau Steven Richard Bishop |
| author_facet | Rafael Prieto Curiel Rafael Prieto Curiel Carmen Cabrera-Arnau Steven Richard Bishop |
| author_sort | Rafael Prieto Curiel |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | City population size is a crucial measure when trying to understand urban life. Many socio-economic indicators scale superlinearly with city size, whilst some infrastructure indicators scale sublinearly with city size. However, the impact of size also extends beyond the city’s limits. Here, we analyse the scaling behaviour of cities beyond their boundaries by considering the emergence and growth of nearby cities. Based on an urban network from African continental cities, we construct an algorithm to create the region of influence of cities. The number of cities and the population within a region of influence are then analysed in the context of urban scaling. Our results are compared against a random permutation of the network, showing that the observed scaling power of cities to enhance the emergence and growth of cities is not the result of randomness. By altering the radius of influence of cities, we observe three regimes. Large cities tend to be surrounded by many small towns for small distances. For medium distances (above 114 km), large cities are surrounded by many other cities containing large populations. Large cities boost urban emergence and growth (even more than 190 km away), but their scaling power decays with distance. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T04:12:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a35f3befae8649d0b420e289ac454e57 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-424X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T04:12:32Z |
| publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Physics |
| spelling | doaj.art-a35f3befae8649d0b420e289ac454e572022-12-22T03:03:05ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Physics2296-424X2022-04-011010.3389/fphy.2022.858307858307Scaling Beyond CitiesRafael Prieto Curiel0Rafael Prieto Curiel1Carmen Cabrera-Arnau2Steven Richard Bishop3Research in Spatial Economics (RiSE) Group, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Universidad EAFIT, Medellín, ColombiaCentre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, United KingdomCentre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, United KingdomDepartment of Mathematics, University College London, London, United KingdomCity population size is a crucial measure when trying to understand urban life. Many socio-economic indicators scale superlinearly with city size, whilst some infrastructure indicators scale sublinearly with city size. However, the impact of size also extends beyond the city’s limits. Here, we analyse the scaling behaviour of cities beyond their boundaries by considering the emergence and growth of nearby cities. Based on an urban network from African continental cities, we construct an algorithm to create the region of influence of cities. The number of cities and the population within a region of influence are then analysed in the context of urban scaling. Our results are compared against a random permutation of the network, showing that the observed scaling power of cities to enhance the emergence and growth of cities is not the result of randomness. By altering the radius of influence of cities, we observe three regimes. Large cities tend to be surrounded by many small towns for small distances. For medium distances (above 114 km), large cities are surrounded by many other cities containing large populations. Large cities boost urban emergence and growth (even more than 190 km away), but their scaling power decays with distance.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2022.858307/fullscalingurban networkAfricacity sizeemergencegrowth |
| spellingShingle | Rafael Prieto Curiel Rafael Prieto Curiel Carmen Cabrera-Arnau Steven Richard Bishop Scaling Beyond Cities Frontiers in Physics scaling urban network Africa city size emergence growth |
| title | Scaling Beyond Cities |
| title_full | Scaling Beyond Cities |
| title_fullStr | Scaling Beyond Cities |
| title_full_unstemmed | Scaling Beyond Cities |
| title_short | Scaling Beyond Cities |
| title_sort | scaling beyond cities |
| topic | scaling urban network Africa city size emergence growth |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2022.858307/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT rafaelprietocuriel scalingbeyondcities AT rafaelprietocuriel scalingbeyondcities AT carmencabreraarnau scalingbeyondcities AT stevenrichardbishop scalingbeyondcities |