Land use economics is a fascinating area of study that has not garnered widespread media attention. So when it does get some press, my inner-nerd goes wild.
In this blog post from the NY Times, the author, Ed Glaeser, explains how well Zipf's Law explains the relationship between population and population rank in US cities.
In a nut-shell, this law states that the population of the largest city will correspond to its rank. in the following ways; Population = 1/x, where x is equal to the rank order of the cities.
So New York is the largest city, and Los Angeles is the second largest. So the population of Los Angeles will be around 1/2 the population of New York. Chicago is the third largest city, which will have a population roughly 1/3rd the size of New York. Dallas is the fourth largest city, which would have a population of 1/4th the size of New York, and about 1/2 the size of Los Angeles.
One offshoot of Zipf's law is Gabaix's law, which states that population growth rates are independent of the initial population.
This is a little counter-intuitive because you would assume that it would be harder for large cities to continue to grow whereas it would be quite easy for small cities to grow. Thus small cities would grow at a faster pace and eventually catch up to larger cities.
But this is not the case if population growth is independent of the initial size, as Gabaix's law states.
When you examine the history of Los Angeles an anomaly emerges. In 1880, Los Angeles was not even on the top 100 of the largest US cities. In 1890, it was #57, in 1910 it was #17, in 1940 it was #5, in 1970 it was #3, in 1990 it was #2. So in the span of 100 years, Los Angeles went from not even on the list to the second billing.
Amazing and unexpected.
2 comments:
I wonder if Zipfs Law holds for being douchey as well?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106634667
We're #1!
OK, that is the kindness shown to homeless people. We have tough love here in LA, which, although is the most painful type of love, still qualifies.
FTFA: The meanest cities, Foscarinis says, are cracking down on people for "living in public places and for begging and eating and for seeking assistance in public places. Some cities are also punishing organizations and some people who are trying to help by offering food to poor people in public places."
Notice how all these cities happen to be warm places, places that are easier for homeless people to live. I believe that the weather is positively correlated with homelessness, and once a city is above a certain level of "expected homelessness" or a natural rate of homelessness that people start to crack down on what they perceive to be a spreading problem.
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