IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/25880.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Defining and measuring polycentric regions: the case of Tuscany

Author

Listed:
  • Burgalassi, David

Abstract

Polycentric development in regions has many dimensions, which involve several definitions and measures. This paper tackles the problem of defining and measuring polycentricity under an integrated and multi- dimensional perspective. Firstly, the policy relevance of polycentricity is analysed. Then, the paper identifies the definitions and measures of polycentricity by surveying the literature. It also provides a taxonomy among two main aspects involved in the definition of polycentricity: the morphological dimension and the functional dimension. Based on this background, an empirical analysis is carried out, by using data about population and commuting flows in the Tuscany Region (Italy). The results show that Tuscany can be viewed as a polycentric spatial structure, both considering rank-size distribution of cities and spatial interaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Burgalassi, David, 2010. "Defining and measuring polycentric regions: the case of Tuscany," MPRA Paper 25880, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25880
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/25880/1/MPRA_paper_25880.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alex Anas & Richard Arnott & Kenneth A. Small, 1998. "Urban Spatial Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1426-1464, September.
    2. Börje Johansson & John M. Quigley, 2004. "Agglomeration and networks in spatial economies," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Raymond J. G. M. Florax & David A. Plane (ed.), Fifty Years of Regional Science, pages 165-176, Springer.
    3. Camagni, Roberto & Gibelli, Maria Cristina & Rigamonti, Paolo, 2002. "Urban mobility and urban form: the social and environmental costs of different patterns of urban expansion," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 199-216, February.
    4. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. Simin Davoudi, 2003. "EUROPEAN BRIEFING: Polycentricity in European spatial planning: from an analytical tool to a normative agenda," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(8), pages 979-999, December.
    6. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2004. "Evidence on the nature and sources of agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 49, pages 2119-2171, Elsevier.
    7. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law and the Growth of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 129-132, May.
    8. P Gordon & H W Richardson & H L Wong, 1986. "The Distribution of Population and Employment in a Polycentric City: The Case of Los Angeles," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 18(2), pages 161-173, February.
    9. Edward L. Glaeser, 1998. "Are Cities Dying?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 139-160, Spring.
    10. Evert Meijers & Krister Sandberg, 2006. "Polycentric Development to Combat Regional Disparities? the Relation Between Polycentricity and Regional Disparities in European Countries," ERSA conference papers ersa06p287, European Regional Science Association.
    11. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
    12. Antonio G. Calafati, 2005. "On the use of local labour systems," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2005(1).
    13. Evert Meijers, 2007. "Clones or Complements? The Division of Labour between the Main Cities of the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the RheinRuhr Area," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(7), pages 889-900.
    14. John Parr, 2004. "The Polycentric Urban Region: A Closer Inspection," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 231-240.
    15. Paolo Veneri, 2010. "Urban Polycentricity and the Costs of Commuting: Evidence from Italian Metropolitan Areas," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 403-429, September.
    16. Giacomo Becattini & Marco Bellandi & Gabi Dei Ottati & Fabio Sforzi, 2003. "From Industrial Districts to Local Development," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2884.
    17. Narisra Limtanakool & Tim Schwanen & Martin Dijst, 2009. "Developments in the Dutch Urban System on the Basis of Flows," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 179-196.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stella Kostopoulou & Paraskevi-Kali Sofianou & Konstantinos Tsiokanos, 2021. "Silk Road Heritage Branding and Polycentric Tourism Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-18, February.
    2. Wenzheng Li & Stephan Schmidt, 2024. "The spatial‐temporal evolution of urban development patterns in Chinese cities: Dynamics and interpretations," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), June.
    3. Lu, Yuhai & Gong, Mincheng & Lu, Linzhuo & Wang, Yaqin & Wang, Yang, 2024. "Urban polycentrism and total-factor energy efficiency: An analysis based on the night light data," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    4. Weiyang Zhang & Ben Derudder, 2019. "How sensitive are measures of polycentricity to the choice of ‘centres’? A methodological and empirical exploration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(16), pages 3339-3357, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Davide Burgalassi & Tommaso Luzzati, 2015. "Urban spatial structure and environmental emissions: a survey of the literature and some empirical evidence for Italian NUTS-3 regions," Discussion Papers 2015/199, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Paolo Veneri & David Burgalassi, 2011. "Questioning Polycentric Development and its Effects. Issues of Definition and Measurement for the Italian NUTS-2 Regions," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 1017-1037, January.
    3. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    4. Frank van Oort & Martijn Burger & Otto Raspe, 2010. "On the Economic Foundation of the Urban Network Paradigm: Spatial Integration, Functional Integration and Economic Complementarities within the Dutch Randstad," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(4), pages 725-748, April.
    5. André de Palma & Alexandre Guimard, 2014. "Urbanism, an overview," Working Papers hal-00969574, HAL.
    6. Lewis Dijkstra & Enrique Garcilazo & Philip McCann, 2013. "The Economic Performance of European Cities and City Regions: Myths and Realities," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 334-354, March.
    7. Mingshu Wang, 2021. "Polycentric urban development and urban amenities: Evidence from Chinese cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(3), pages 400-416, March.
    8. Evert Meijers & Martijn Burger & Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2016. "Static vs. dynamic agglomeration economies. Spatial context and structural evolution behind urban growth," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(1), pages 133-158, March.
    9. Wen Chen & Komali Yenneti & Yehua Dennis Wei & Feng Yuan & Jiawei Wu & Jinlong Gao, 2019. "Polycentricity in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA): More Cohesion or More Disparities?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-18, June.
    10. Antti Vasanen, 2012. "Functional Polycentricity: Examining Metropolitan Spatial Structure through the Connectivity of Urban Sub-centres," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(16), pages 3627-3644, December.
    11. Antti Vasanen, 2013. "Spatial Integration and Functional Balance in Polycentric Urban Systems: A Multi-Scalar Approach," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 104(4), pages 410-425, September.
    12. Hernán D. Rozenfeld & Diego Rybski & Xavier Gabaix & Hernán A. Makse, 2011. "The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2205-2225, August.
    13. Bumsoo Lee & Peter Gordon, 2007. "Urban Spatial Structure and Economic Growth in US Metropolitan Areas," Working Paper 8564, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    14. de Goei, B. & Burger, M.J. & van Oort, F.G. & Kitson, M., 2009. "Functional Polycentrism and Urban Network Development in the Greater South East UK: Evidence from Commuting Patterns, 1981-2001," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2009-038-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    15. Evert Meijers & Martijn Burger & Martijn J. Burger & Evert J. Meijers, 2016. "Agglomerations and the rise of urban network externalities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(1), pages 5-15, March.
    16. Volgmann, Kati, 2012. "Neue Kerne in metropolitanen Räumen: Polyzentrische Strukturen und Funktionen im Metropolraum Rhein-Ruhr," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Growe, Anna & Heider, Katharina & Lamker, Christian & Paßlick, Sandra & Terfrüchte, Thomas (ed.), Polyzentrale Stadtregionen - Die Region als planerischer Handlungsraum, volume 3, pages 203-216, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    17. Paolo VENERI, 2010. "The Identification of Sub-centres in Two Italian Metropolitan Areas: a Functional Approach," Working Papers 343, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    18. Matthias Firgo & Peter Mayerhofer, 2015. "Wissens-Spillovers und regionale Entwicklung - welche strukturpolitische Ausrichtung optimiert des Wachstum?," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 144, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    19. McMillen, Daniel P. & Smith, Stefani C., 2003. "The number of subcenters in large urban areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 321-338, May.
    20. Peng Ji & Lilin Yuan, 2023. "Whether polycentric spatial structure is conducive to regional coordinated development: A study on urban agglomerations in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 940-961, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Polycentric development; spatial structure; rank-size estimations; spatial interaction; Tuscany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25880. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.