| This study examines the emergence of economically distinctive cities in the United States during the twentieth century, and explores changes in the factors that explain this distinctiveness. Decennial census data on employment in 14 occupational and industrial sectors are analyzed for 103 US metropolitan areas in each decade from 1900 through 2000. In seeking to understand the forces responsible for cities' trajectories of economic distinctiveness, five theories proposed during the twentieth century are evaluated: (a) Central Place Theory, (b) Spaces of Flows, (c) Human Ecology, (d) Path Dependence, and (e) Natural Advantage. To do so, a new regression-based methodology is developed wherein data is collected at the city-level, transformed and analyzed at the dyad-level using Euclidean distances, then back-transformed and evaluated at the city-level using a combination of multidimensional scaling and procrustes rotation. Results suggest that each of these theoretical perspectives has contributed to understandings of the urban system, but that their explanatory power is contextually and historically embedded. By the end of the twentieth century, the factors identified by the Human Ecology and Spaces of Flows perspectives are the primary determinants of cities' economic distinctiveness. Thus, modern cities' economic structures appear to hinge on two questions: who lives there and how well connected are they? The central implications of this project concern new ways of thinking about smart urban growth: urban leaders seeking to enhance a city's economic prospects should concentrate on attracting specific segments of the population (human ecology) and on growing a city's exchange relationships with other cities (space of flows). |
