Urban Spatial Structure
Urban Spatial Structure was published in the autumn of 1998 in the Journal of Economic Literature, under the signature of editorialists Alex Anas, Richard Arnott and Kenneth Small. It addresses a highly debated issue, namely the impact and importance of city structures upon several features of life, including economics. The article is rather comprehensive and destined for the specialized reader, moreover when it was written in a time of major structural changes. The article brings into discussion a subject of great interest, namely the close correlation between the development of an urban center in terms of size and structure and the factors affecting this, be they of economic, social or political nature. The article is focused on the way economic growth, economic diversification and the different economic sectors that are predominant in the city determine the way a cities spreads out, but the length to which the authors go is vast in covering employment, economic growth etc. as factors influencing the way a city develops. Urban spatial structure, or simply urban structure, can be defined as the way of organizing the buildings, bridges, roads and any other components of the city in such a manner that is seen as effective and c
As a result, the polycentric city arose and it was defined by an agglomeration of economies and welfare economies. All in all, the urban city structure has changed drastically during the recent decades in the meaning that it became more efficient in orientation. This process has been increasingly common during the past centuries; however, the more recent periods have shown a tendency to move towards more centralized regions. In this order of ideas, it can easily be observed that highly developed regions and namely business centers, have greater capabilities of attracting large numbers of citizens, generating as such an agglomeration in the area (Stanilov, 2007). And the rather simple model of city organization based on only limited factors, soon grew in complexity and forces to which it was sensitive. Nowadays, however, we need to take into consideration "returns to scale, monopolistic competition, vertical integration, technological innovation, innovation diffusion, and international specialization" (Anas, Arnott and Small, 1998). But as a historic trend, these structures became insufficient for the growing population and industrialization, generating as such the process of suburbanization. In this instance, the monocentric city is "a circular residential area surrounding a central business district (CBD) in which all jobs are located" (Anas, Arnott and Small, 1998) and it can be open, in the meaning that it has an elastic population, or closed, in the meaning that it has a fixed population. Suburbanization refers to the process of the population's movement towards less crowded and polluted areas, in the vicinity or suburbs of the large cities (Encyclopedia Britanica, 2008). The decentralization of the cities refers to the "transfer of authority to make policies and decisions, carry out management functions and use resources from central government authorities to local government, field administration, semi-autonomous corporations, area-wide or regional development organizations, functional authorities, sub-ordinate units of government or specialized functional authorities" (Cheema and Rondinelli, 2007). A most important fact which has to be mentioned is that these two forms of cities basically cohabitate and can next to never function on their own. an foster further growth and development of the community (Knox and Marston, 2007). Some cities are dominantly monocentric, others are dominantly polycentric and many are in between" (Bertaud, 2004). Some of the urban centers become even grouped together, as some activities are outsourced to smaller centers, grouped nevertheless around the older central business district (CBD).
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