UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

In this essay we offer a view of what economics can say about and learn from urban structure. In doing so, we reach into neighboring disciplines; but we do not aspire to a complete survey even of urban economics, much less of the related fields of urban geography or urban planning. Our focus on internal structure should provide Mayor Daley a more complete basis for comparing Chicago's density to that of New York, or its degree of centralization to that of Los Angeles. (Throughout this essay we use the word "city," or the name of a particular city, to mean an entire urban region; other terms with similar meanings are "metropolitan area" and "urban area.")