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Individual Preference and Optimal City Size

Department of Forestry and Wood Science, University College of North Wales, Bangor

The desirability of city size can only be judged in relation to the preferences of individuals for production and consumption economies and diseconomies of scale. A model based on plausible utility functions and the free migration of utility-maximising individuals generates a well-spaced city hierarchy, reasonably able to satisfy the population's tastes. It can adjust to population growth or change of taste without serious over-enlargement of cities. Minor interference with it would doubtfully produce net benefit. Rather than externalities in themselves, it is the combination of externalities with inertia that may create suboptimal city hierarchies.

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