Models of Urban Economic Growth: A Review

Miron, J.R. (1975). Models of Urban Economic Growth: A Review. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-75-138

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Abstract

The processes by which cities come to exist and grow have been of great interest to both academics and policymakers. As with any such topic, the complexity, richness, and profusion of urbanization phenomena have led researchers with different disciplinary and cultural perspectives to offer a multitude of explanatory theories and models. Policymakers who try to distill something from the academic can be left very confused by this broad array of ideas.

The purpose of the present paper is, in one sense, limited. It is beyond the scope here to assimilate and synthesize the complete range of ideas available about urbanization. Instead, we shall concentrate on the contributions of economists towards a model of urban growth. Further, we shall emphasize models relevant to current metropolitan growth in North America. Although the range of this study is limited in this way, we are better able to concentrate on specific economic mechanisms when other cultural and economic factors are held approximately constant. The currency and locational specificity of these concepts hopefully make this paper useful to contemporary urban policy-makers in these two countries.

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