revisiting the optimal city size argument
TRANSCRIPT
Revisiting the Optimal City Size argument
Dissertation 2015
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Pratham Pincha, PP0007013 │ Masters in Planning │ Dissertation 2015 │ FP, CEPT University, Ahmedabad
Guided by – Prof. Shivanand Swamy
He is considerably dependent on others for his material/physical & emotional needs
So he lives in Organized groups for his sustenance
Human is a Social Animal
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It has other 3 dimensions that defines the group
z
yx
I. Demography
• The number of people that form this group
II. Spatial Size
• The expanse of the space they cover
III. Functions
• Activities performed
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To name a few:
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Aristotle
74th CAA
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Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Chanakya
On his ideas of town & countryplanning – decongestion oftowns & setting up of newtowns
03-02-2015 7Source - Town and Country planning in Arthashastra composed by Chanakya in the Maurya period
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Plato
In his book The Republic wantedhis republic to be small
Need of expansion – desire ofwealth & luxury – evil
Ideal state population = 504003-02-2015 8Source - Plato in The Republic, In book 2, just before he talks about the characteristics of guardians
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Aristotle
In his book Politics – had amoderate stand
03-02-2015 9Source - Aristotle, in book 7, chapter 4 Politics
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Aristotle
Increase in number of persons – beyond alimit – affects interrelation between then &the city03-02-2015 10Source - Aristotle, in book 7, chapter 4 Politics
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Aristotle
The Human in a much larger physical extents like bigcities can develop affinity and sense of belongingonly for smaller physical extents & people
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Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Aristotle
The Human in a much larger physical extents like bigcities can develop affinity and sense of belongingonly for smaller physical extents & people
Lower limit :self-sufficiency
Upper limit :people’s ability toknow one another
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Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Aristotle
To know the officials without personallyknowing them is ‘haphazard’
“….the largest number which sufficesfor the purposes of life, and can be
taken in at a single view”
03-02-2015 13Source - Aristotle, in book 7, chapter 4 Politics
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Ebenezer Howard
Limits population in each garden city to32,000.Though no empirical evidence was given
Modern Planning example of the Gardencity concept
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Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
74th CAA
For Efficient Governance
Better Voice to citizens
Accountability of authority directly to citizens
Realizes the need for smaller decentralized unitscalled Area Sabha – legitimate units
Footprint of a polling station
03-02-2015 15Source - Ramanathan Ramesh, Federalism, Urban Decentralisation and Citizen Participation, 2007, Economic & Political weekly
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Capello
Alonso
Advantages of agglomeration in city
Vs the location cost
City size
Agglomeration economies
03-02-2015 16Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
Chanakya Plato Aristotle
Ebenezer Howard
74th CAA Capello
AlonsoGeoffrey
WestHenderson
Geoffrey West
In his work – Growth, innovation, scaling &pace of life in cities
Interestingly metamorphosed cities withliving organisms over the concept ofEconomies of scale , Pace of life &Productivity
03-02-2015 17Source - West Geoffrey, Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, PNAS, (2007)
The stated works realizes the
significance of scalability on
various spheres of Human
Habitat such as
Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
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Like Aristotle stated the impact of population largely on the social quotient of the settlement.
With increase in city size & population, the share of ‘direct relationships’ between people decreases and ‘indirect relationships’ increases.
Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
Is social quotient a function of City size?
What does the human mental & physical limits
renders to the scalability issues of the city?
How city size can be viewed as a solution tosocial problems of safety over other solution of
architecture, planning and law & order?
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
Increase in city size leads to centralization
centralization leads to complexities
And complexities leads to inefficiencies
How?
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
Suppose A & B are some necessaryfunctions of a settlement
Now as settlement size increases & centralization starts to happen
A B
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
A B
This makes way for several subsidiary or
supporting functions to emerge
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
A B
for e.g. If working at a workplace is one of the necessary function, as city increases, subsidiary functions emerge, to enable the
primary functions.
Mass transit network
Eating joints to serve its commuter
Security arrangements and so on03-02-2015 24
Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
• So with the increase in the settlement sizedoes the complexity increases and the
problems too?
• If yes, what is the cost that we bear for
mitigating those additional problems?
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
Realizing the significance of scalability -74th CAA carved way for decentralization
??? problems to identify strategies of govt.interventions that can effectively influencethe city size.
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
Efforts were made to fragment the large
urban agglomeration into smaller unitsfor better management & administration.
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
information levels
Otherwise formation of huge centralizedpyramids leads to adulteration ininformation transfer at various levels due tothe presence of human element, therebymaking the system slow & less efficient.
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
Also since the civil officials can haveaffinity & sensitivity only for a particularnumber of people and area, centralization
beyond a limit leads to unrealisticsolutions.
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
• The questions that arise from this are whatare those appropriate levels ofdecentralization for most efficient governance
practices?
• Does it provide much louder voice to thecitizens of the city to participate in the issues
of governance?
• And catalyse their participation in the
development of society?
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Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
In the concept of economic agglomeration,Roberto Capello found out that the averagelocation benefit curve increases for higher orderfunctions & hence the optimal city size for thehigher order functions will be higher.
The economic functions characterising the city arean important determinant of the efficient city size.
City size
Agglomeration economies
f1 f2 f3
03-02-2015 31Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
Social
Energy
Governance
Economic
In a regional economic situation there existroles/functions that each settlements play toform a hierarchical pattern over the space.
• Does there exist a regional model wherevarious settlements play different functions tomake a self-contained unit?
• What is the ideal size of that unit?
• Does this model answer to the disparityissues within the region?
• What is the threshold for diverting functionsand importance to other settlements?
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Research proposal
Aim:
To explore the concept of scalability alongside the well established OptimalCity Size argument for accessing its significance on the social, Economic,Environment & Institutional Quotient of Human Habitats.
Objectives:
1. To devise a framework for accessing cost & benefit of complexitiesarising out of Urban Growth.
2. To derive the significance of physical & mental limits of human onscalability of human habitats.
3. To formulate a framework to access the social cost due to increasingsettlement size.
4. To explore Scalability as a concept to answer the problems of intra-regional disparities.
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Alonso posed the questions
‘how big is big enough?’ and
‘how big is too big?’
The main question was to identify whether increasing
returns to urban size exist?
The argument of Optimal City Size Theory
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The argument of Optimal City Size Theory
City size
AverageLocation advantages
Due to externalities that stem from:
a) Consumptions and investments in
public services,
b) Large markets of outputs;
c) Large and diversified markets of
inputs
(Alonso 1971)
“Agglomeration economics”03-02-2015 36Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument of Optimal City Size Theory
City size
AverageLocation costs
Since:
Implementation of fixed capital infrastructure decrease while the
number of people using them
increases
“Agglomeration economics”03-02-2015 37
(Alonso 1971)
Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument of Optimal City Size Theory
City size
AverageLocation benefits
Due to:
Congestion,
High urban rents,
Environmental costs
“Agglomeration diseconomics”
Opposite mechanism
starts to work
03-02-2015 38Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument of Optimal City Size Theory
City size
AverageLocation costs Average location costs
deceases & then increases,
diminishing the net
agglomeration advantage.
(Alonso 1971)“Agglomeration diseconomics”
03-02-2015 39Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
“The size of the city for which the difference between location total costs and advantages is the size that
maximizes the net benefits, and for this reason it is
identified as the ‘optimal city size’”
The argument of Optimal City Size Theory
(Capello 2011)
03-02-2015 40Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
Capello explores the relationship between
Size of the city & its Functions
By SOUDY (supply oriented dynamic approach) model - Camagni et al. 1986
The argument against Optimal City Size Theory
Although large number of empirical evidences, there are many
criticisms of the neo classical approach to the optimal city size theory.
03-02-2015 41Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument against Optimal City Size Theory
f1f2
f3
Say 3 settlements with
functions f1, f2 & f3.
• higher order functionsare characterised by
higher thresholds for the
level of appearance in the
city (in terms of urban
population)
03-02-2015 42Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument against Optimal City Size Theory
The average location benefit
curve increases for higher
order functions, due to
a) growing entry barriers,
b) decreasing elasticity of
demand which allows
extra profits to be gained
in all market conditions,
c) increasing possibility of
obtaining monopolistic
revenues due to the use of
scarce, qualified factors.
03-02-2015 43Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument against Optimal City Size Theory
So as said by Richardson:
‘we may expect the
efficient range of city
sizes to vary, possibly
dramatically, according to
the functions & the
structure of cities inquestion’ (Richardson 1972)⁶
03-02-2015 44Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
The argument against Optimum City Size Theory
Other limitations of optimal city size theory include:
• Cities exist in interurban environment. The theory of optimal city size
does not consider the spatial context in which the
cities operate.
• In 1967, Chinitz expressed some doubts over the fact that urban
productivity is mainly dependent on the city size. He found out the
importance of diversified and competitive urban
production system on the urban productivity.
“In the time when the urbanization has been drastically affected by
urban growth, it has become a necessity to overcome the limits of
optimal size theory.” -Capello 2011
03-02-2015 45Source - Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?
Geoffrey West – in his work Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities
interestingly metamorphosed cities with living organism in his
efforts for developing a predictive, quantitative theory of urban organization &sustainable development.
. Per capita, big city dwellers use
less energy than small town
dwellers
All the infrastructure costs behave in the similar manner
03-02-2015 46Source - West Geoffrey, Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, PNAS, (2007)
Cities & Scalability
Cities & Scalability
All the socio economic quantities
The bigger we are the more we have per capita
03-02-2015 47Source - West Geoffrey, Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, PNAS, (2007)
Cities & Scalability
All the socio economic quantities
03-02-2015 48Source - West Geoffrey, Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, PNAS, (2007)
Cities & Scalability
All the socio economic quantities
03-02-2015 49Source - West Geoffrey, Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, PNAS, (2007)
The External Diseconomy Question
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Henderson in his work optimum city size: the external diseconomy question studies about
The mitigation of externalities due to increasing city size
&
Results of mitigation measures on the city size
Source - Henderson J. V., Optimum City Size, the External Diseconomy Question, 1972
The External Diseconomy Question
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Market achieved city size >or< than optimum city size?
Source - Henderson J. V., Optimum City Size, the External Diseconomy Question, 1972
A popularly held idea is that, big cities are too large & optimum cities would be smaller
city
Why Non-Optimality?Externalities
Noise
Air pollution
Water pollution
congestion
₹
₹
₹ Tax
Reduction in city size
Externalities are priced to equate the social & private marginal cost
The External Diseconomy Question
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The study shows that reduction in pollution due to taxation & shift towards consumption of non-polluting
goods will make city inhabitants better off.
This increased welfare of city inhabitants will result in immigration to the city
Source - Henderson J. V., Optimum City Size, the External Diseconomy Question, 1972
Questions about the significance of Scalability & City sizes have come timeand again, since ancient to modern times.
Though changing ideologies with change in time, people & place havemended the direction of research in various spheres of Human Habitats.
With the limited knowledge I’ve gained in this subject throughobservations, realizations, and readings it is almost my conviction that theimplication of Human scale (scalability) in settlements is to a considerableextent . And due to limitations of information & understanding, significanceof settlement size on the social quotient is less explored.
So I’d like to explore and contribute with a few more variables of social wellbeing adhering to the subject.
Way forward…
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References• ¹Town and Country planning in Arthashastra composed by Chanakya in the Maurya period• ²Plato in The Republic, In book 2, just before he talks about the characteristics of guardians• ³Aristotle, in book 7, chapter 4 Politics• ⁴Ramanathan Ramesh, Federalism, Urban Decentralisation and Citizen Participation, 2007,
Economic & Political weekly•
• ⁵From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia• ⁶Capello Roberta, Urban Growth: Is It a Never Ending Story?, Symphonya. Emerging Issues in
Management (www.unimib.it/symphonya), n. 1, 2011, pp. 19-28• ⁷West Geoffrey, Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, PNAS, (2007), vol. 104,
no. 17, 7301-7306, www.pnas.org_cgi_doi_10.1073_pnas.0610172104• ⁸Bharthi Ravinthra, Optimal City Size, an enquiry in the cities of Tamil Nadu, theses, 1981, School of
Planning, CEPT University, Ahmedabad• ⁹Henderson J. V., Optimum City Size, the External Diseconomy Question, 1972, Queen’s University,
Discussion paper no. 91
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