More evidence on the spatial scale of cities

This study re-examines the 1983 study by Brueckner and Fansler that empirically estimated the determinants of urbanized land areas, regressing land area on population, income, transportation costs, and agricultural land values. This study, however, utilizes a larger, more comprehensive data set of metropolitan statistical areas over a longer period of time. The estimation results, consistent with Bruecker and Fansler, confirm that the simple monocentric model is empirically robust and that the standard economic factors identified by urban economic theory explain the majority of spatial variation in the sizes the largest US metropolitan regions over the post-war period.