About city dynamics

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, we analyze the model for the dynamics of urban population obtained from first principles considerations (see Chapter 9). In particular, we will show that this model is able to simultaneously explain observations about the stationary population distribution and the temporal dynamics of systems of cities. In particular, this model is able to identify the causes of the diversity of empirical observations about the hierarchical organization of cities, the occurrence of megacities, and the empirical instability in city dynamics seen in the births and deaths of large cities on short time scales.