Center cities, suburban cities and the metropolitan community: An analysis of intrametropolitan relationships

Research of the past twenty-five years has identified changes in spatial processes resulting in the industrial and demographic restructuring of the metropolis. Effects of the center city's shift from the manufacturing, retail, and coordinative center of the metropolitan community, to a producer service center with an extralocal cliental are well documented. However, an important aspect of this transformation has been overlooked--the concurrent rise of large suburban cities. In order to evaluate current metropolitan structure, the role of these suburban cities must be examined. Yet extant theories of sociospatial processes have been criticized for their apparent inability to explain current metropolitan organization, particularly the role of large suburban cities. Of primary concern is that current patterns appear to violate the assumption of monocentricity--a single dominant place--central to theories of metropolitan organization.; This dissertation examines metropolitan organization in specific reference to the contradictions of this basic tenet. I argue that the existence of suburban central places--suburban cities that have assumed functions traditionally attributed to center cities--may explain the apparent violations of these theories. To identify suburban central places, large suburban cities are evaluated on three dimensions of center city function: (1) sufficiency of the economy to support the population; (2) industrial specialization in coordinative activities; (3) centrality in the commuting network. The results of this research indicate that several suburban cities function as traditional central places and may compete with center city for a position of dominance. However, not all suburban cities assume a central role and there is evidence of significant diversity among suburbs. Rather than viewing the metropolitan area as a city/suburban ring dichotomy, this analysis suggests that the metropolis is better represented as a complex system of cities. This research provides both empirical analysis and theoretical exegesis to the foundations of metropolitan organization. The unique contribution of this research is the analysis of intrametropolitan relationships in multinodal metropolitan communities and the identification of the multicentered metropolis as a distinct type of community. As such, it has significant implications for future research of intra- and inter-metropolitan relationships.