Abstract
The uneven distribution of economic activity across space is one of the most striking features of economic life. Perhaps the clearest visual manifestation of this is the emergence and growth of cities. The share of the world’s population living in cities grew from less than one tenth in 1300, to around one sixth in 1900, and to around one half today. Even more striking is the emergence of large metropolitan areas. By 1980 there were more than two million cities with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants, and by 1995 15 cities had a population of greater than ten million.1
This chapter is produced as part of the Globalization Programme of the ESRC-funded Centre for Economic Performance. Financial support under the European Union Research Training Network grant MRTN-CT-2006-035873 is gratefully acknowledged. I am grateful to a number of co-authors and colleagues for insight, discussion and helpful comments, including in particular Tony Venables and also Gilles Duranton, Guy Michaels, Henry Overman, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, Peter Schott, Daniel Sturm and Nikolaus Wolf. Nonetheless, I bear sole responsibility for the opinions expressed and any errors.
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Redding, S.J. (2013). Economic Geography: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature. In: Bernhofen, D., Falvey, R., Greenaway, D., Kreickemeier, U. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of International Trade. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-30531-1_16
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