A spatial network explanation for a hierarchy of urban power laws

TL;DR

This paper introduces a complex network model explaining urban hierarchies and land value distributions, linking spatial economic phenomena to network patterns and predicting empirical urban land value and population relations.

Contribution

The model offers a novel network-based explanation for urban power laws and land value distributions, connecting land value to population linearly.

Findings

Reproduces empirical land value and city size distributions

Predicts spatial distribution of land value density

Establishes linear relation between land value and population

Abstract

The presented model provides an explanation to several empirically observed phenomena in spatial economics. By representing the system as a complex network of fixed-size land areas connected by trade between harbored activities, city size and land value distributions are obtained as higher-order patterns. The model predicts the empirically observed spatial distribution of land value density as well as that of urban cluster prices. To connect land value to population, which is a commonly observed quantity, we also demonstrate that there is, for urban clusters, a linear relation between accumulated land value and population.