Why is the absence of a rank-size distribution significant in a less developed country?

Abstract

This paper examines the distribution characteristics of urban settlements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through major dimensions such as settlement regularly, degree of primacy and polarisation at the national and geographic regional levels. The paper points out that the settlement pattern at the national level has transformed from a primate distribution during the pre-plan period (< 1970) to an intermediary distribution during the period of development planning (1970 >). At the geographical regional level the settlement distribution, however, has shown diverse pattern. While the regional settlement distribution of Western and Eastern Region have shown trends of increasing polarisation, settlements in the Northern and Southern Regions are more log-normal in character. This is explained by the increasing growth of small and intermediary towns in the Northern and Southern Regions. The paper concludes that the national trend of decreasing urban primacy, induced by the decentralised national development strategies, is less pronounced due to the absence of a balanced regional investment policy. Since the government expenditure and settlement population growth rates are not related, slow growing primate cities continue to receive a larger share of public expenditure, enabling them to retain their primacy. This calls for a balanced regional investment policy to fully realise the national strategy of regional balance and multi-polar settlement pattern.

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Why is the absence of a rank-size distribution significant in a less developed country?

Why is the absence of a rank-size distribution significant in a less developed country?

Abstract

This paper makes a discovery in comparing Steindl's model of a growing system of cities to Champernowne's model of a stationary one: While the so-called Pareto coefficient (a measure of size concentration) of the city size distribution for a growing system is determined by the ratio of the average rate of growth in the sizes of cities to the rate of growth in the number of cities, and is thus independent of the variance in growth rates across cities, and also, to a large degree, independent of their behavior over time, the coefficient is directly proportional to this variance in the case of stationarity. This has interesting policy implications: As long as the urban system is growing as a whole, efforts to reduce rates of growth in high-growth areas and to raise them in low-growth areas, i.e., to reduce the dispersion in growth rates across cities, will have no effect on the shape of the size distribution of cities. However, if the system were to cease to grow, these same efforts would have a potentially great effect on this distribution. This suggests that the customary pessimism expressed by students of urban phenomena in the efficacy of legislation to alter the form of the size distribution of cities, a pessimism induced by their observation of the persistence of the current distribution over time in many countries, is primarily due to the circumstances in which these systems are observed, i.e., in periods of growth and expansion.

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Copyright © 1977 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Why is the absence of a rank

If a country follows the primate city rule it means that the country's largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement. The absence of rank-size distribution in many developing countries indicates that there is not enough wealth in the society to pay full variety of services.

Why is the absence of a rank

Why is the absence of a rank-size distribution significant in a country like Romania? Consumers do not all have access to goods and services.

What does following the rank

This is the rank-size rule, where a country's nth largest settlement is 1/nth the population of the largest settlement. So the second largest city would be 1/2 the largest settlement. The US follows this rule well, which shows that goods and services are provided to consumers at many levels throughout the country.

What was the most important economic reason for the origin of settlements?

AP Human Geography Chapter 12 Study Guide - Services.