Urban scaling laws arise from within-city inequalities.

ABSTRACT: Theories of urban scaling have demonstrated remarkable predictive accuracy at aggregate levels. However, they have overlooked the stark inequalities that exist within cities. Human networking and productivity exhibit heavy-tailed distributions, with some individuals contributing disproportionately to city totals. Here we use micro-level data from Europe and the United States on interconnectivity, productivity and innovation in cities. We find that the tails of within-city distributions and their growth by city size account for 36-80% of previously reported scaling effects, and 56-87% of the variance in scaling between indicators of varying economic complexity. Providing explanatory depth to these findings, we identify a mechanism-city size-dependent cumulative advantage-that constitutes an

SUBMITTER: Arvidsson M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10038794 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature