Modelling Interdependencies in Hierarchical Settlement Systems

Sheppard, E. (1983). Modelling Interdependencies in Hierarchical Settlement Systems. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-83-031

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Abstract

This paper discusses some fundamental difficulties faced by researchers attempting to model hierarchical settlement systems. Particular attention is paid to the problem of relating the effects of city size and of the regional location on growth prospects for a city. It is argued that the central issue here is a need to relate a multiregional specification of change to the hierarchical, overlapping regions that are typical of an urban system and reflect its city size distribution. A typology is provided of methods that convert interactions between arbitrarily defined regions into interactions between more meaningful functional, urban centered, regions. This is then used in an exercise that demonstrates how a conventional multiregional economic model may be restructured to allow use of a hierarchical set of functional regions, in such a way that regional economic theory may be used to ask questions about the effect of city size and regional location on urban phenomena.

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