MONOCENTRIC VS.

POLICENTRIC MODELS:
THE FUTUREOF URBAN ECONOMICS
IN REGIONALSCIENCE

Harry W. Richardson
State University of New York
Albany, N.Y. 12222, USA
and
Universityof Southern California
Los Angeles, CA, USA

I hope that I do not have to justify speaking about urban economics at a

Regional Science conference. Althoughmuch of regional science has focussed on
regional or more general spatial analysis, obviously the urban level remains an
important aspect of regional science, possibly a critical aspect because of the
presence of urban spatial externalities. Many disciplines have contributed to
urban analysis, but only economics has built its treatment on a theoretical
model Of course, urban geographers, planners, and the builders of computer
simulation models do have som~ theoretical underpinnings to their descriptions
and quantitative evaluations but only the urban economist has built more than
twenty-five years of analysis on a simple theoretical model of urban spatial
structure.
If this viewpoint is legitimate, two questions arise. First, does analysis of
the urban economy need a theory? Second, if the answer to the first question is
yes, how helpful is the standard urban monocentric model of land use as the
guiding light? It is difficult to find anyone who could argue with the first point.
Even the most empirically oriented and practical urban model is based upon some
kind of theoretical framework, however general. What are the requirements for
a sound urban theory? First, the theory should be general in the sense that it is
applicable to all, or at least a wider range of, cities rather than to a specific
city. Second, it should shed light on some of the key characteristics of urban
spatial structure and economicbehavior. This is a debatable point only because
analysts may differ on what they define as "key characteristics." Third, its
predictions with respect to travel behavior, rent gradients, population distribu-
tion and other dimensionsshould be plausible, if not precisely correct. It should
be noted here that a theoretical model does not have to be a close representation
of the real world. The purpose of a model is to simplify reality so as to highlight
key phenomena. However, there is the question of how far the model can distort
reality before it ceases to be relevant, and should be replaced by a less realistic
but equally simplified model. This is an important question to be put to the
standard monocentric model of urban land use that has dominated urban
economics, and urban models within regional science, for a generation or more.

Presidential Address to the Western Regional Science Association

Twenty-Seventh AnnualMeeting, Napa Valley, California.
 HARRY W. RICHARDSON

Thus, an appraisal of this standard monocentrie model is needed. A

literature review of the topic could be enormous, so the discussion here will be
based on two relatively recent sources: Dick Muth's paper on the monocentric
model in the 1985 Silver Anniversary issue of the Journal of Regional Science
(Muth, 1985) and the relevant papers in the North-Holland Handbook of Urban
Economics edited by Ed Mills (Mills, 1987). A defense of the monocentric model
could rest on several props.
i. Whateverits limitations, the monocentric model is the only model
we have. Despite the fact that most papers in the Journal of Urban Economics
are based on the assumptions of the monocentric model, this is not strictly true.
Urban economists are comfortable with the monocentric model, they understand
it thoroughly, and it is easy to play with. Even when they venture into a world of
multiple centers, it is often by adapting the monocentric model such as Kenneth
Wieand's recent (1987) extension into a two-center setting. But to imply that
there is no alternative is based on a very restrictive view of what a theoretical
model should be. If the aim of a model is merely to demonstrate the existence
of a long-run equilibrium and to show what the equilibrium conditions might be
perhaps there is no competitor to the monocentric model. But the monocentric
model may not provide much assistance to urban policymakers. Proving
existence and predicting the signs of changes in key variables in a comparative
statics analysis do not help very much when the policy analyst needs to know the
precise quantitative impacts of policy measures. Of course, alternative theories
are going to have the same problem if they are structured in the same way. but
if they are used as buildingblocks for the development of operational simulation
models as suggested by Harris (1985), a reliance on restrictive assumptions in
order to derive qualitative generalizations may not be necessary. The
requirements of a relevant theory are much more flexible because i) diversity of
human behavior can be accommodated (e.g., discrete choice theory, gravity
models) and, ii) the location of production can be made endogenousrather than
assumed to occur in a spaceless CBD (Miyao, 1987).
2. The obvious fact that only a small proportion of metropolitan area jobs
are found in the CBD (an average of less than 8 percent for the 30 largest
metropolitan areas in 1980) does not necessarily undermine the predictions of a
model that assumes that al__lljobs are located in the CBD (Muth, 1985). Muth's
arguments are threefold. First, even if the fraction of CBD jobs is small both
house prices and money wages would have to fall with distance from the CBD to
compensate CBD workers for longer commutes and to attract them from locally
available jobs "as they would if everyone worked in the CBD": (Muth, 1985, p.
598; my emphasis). Second, much of the non-CBD employment is local and
occurring in small concentrations. Third, it is unclear "whether non-CBD
concentrations of employment are important enough in the typical U.S. city to
produce noticeable effects" (Ibid., p. 598, my emphasis). Muth also argues (Ibid.,
pp. 600-01) that the existence of substantial non-CBD employment also explains
why central vs. suburban income differentials are much narrower than those
predicted by the standard monocentrie model
3. The standard model predicts that traffic congestion will become
more severe in conditions of urban growth and with increases in city size.
Because commuting in the monocentric model is CBD-oriented, a larger city
implies more commuters traveling along any radial corridor and this will result in
increasing congestion unless the capacity of the transportation system can be
expanded to keep pace with the denser commuting flow. The problem with this
is that the hypothesis of worseningcongestion rests more on casual observation
 MONOCENTRIC VS. POLICENTRIC MODELS

and media hype than on research results.

4. Not only are the predicted negative gradients with increasing
distance from the CBD observed (house prices, land rents, output ' of housing
services per unit of land, population densities), but their relative rates of change
are plausible and internally consistent (e.g., land prices and population densities
decline at several times the rate of house prices).
5. The standard monocentric model yields conditions of locational
equilibrium that are widely understood, and this is the lynchpin of the model. In
the homogeneous incomes case, the essential condition is that the marginal
decline in housing expenditures with outward movement should exactly
compensate the marginal increase in commuting costs so that households are
indifferent among locations. With income stratification, the result is not much
different, except that higher income households live further from the city
center. The phenomenon of gentrification is more difficult to handle, but can be
accommodated by making assumptions about the relative income elasticities of
demand for housing space and for commuting economies; this may require
introducing locational preferences for different strata of the high-income class.
6. The assumptions of the model allow the spatial distribution of
households to be treated as a problem continuous in space. The intertemporal
analysis is not considered to be so critical; frequently the models are static,
sometimes they are discrete (e.g., a two-period comparison), occasionally they
are continuous in time. The main advantage of a continuous spatial model is that
it permits the application of calculus and other standard tools from the economic
theorist's toolbag (e.g., calculus of variations, optimal control theory). This
familiar methodology may explain why some mainstream economists were
tempted to flirt with urban economic models in the early 1970s (e.g., Solow,
1972, 1973a and b; Mirrlees, 1972).
If the monocentric model can survive an attack on its lack of realism
(because its restrictive assumptions are "sufficient rather than necessary
conditions for the conclusions reached"; Muth, 1985, p. 594) and on its
predictions (because many of these have received approximate empirical support,
even though the models may have been mis-specified), the most vulnerable part
of its defense is the second point above, i.e., what happens when the assumption
that all jobs are located in the CBD is dropped. The central problem is not that
this assumption does not correspond with reality but rather that dropping it
destroys the determinacy of locational equilibrium, and without locational
equilibrium the rationale for the monocentric model evaporates. With non-CBD
employment, equilibrium conditions have to be satisfied in the labor market as
well as the land market, and the problem arises because the same mechanism--
the marginal change in commuting costs with increasing distance from the CBD-
-is used to achieve the equilibrium spatial distribution of land rents and wages.
Land market equilibrium requires that increasing commuting costs with outward
movement are exactly offset by declining housing expenditures. Labor market
equilibrium requires that money wages decline with distance from the CBD by an
amount equal to the cost of commuting to and from the CBD. If suburban
households whose workers work in the CBD are fully compensated by lower land
rents and higher wages as these equilibrium conditions imply, the burden of
commuting costs is double counted.
From the point of view of the individual CBD-worker household the
obvious solution is that the combined effect of lower land rents and higher wages
should exactly offset the higher commuting costs associated with moving out-
wards. But if wages decline with distance by less than marginal commuting costs
 HARRY W. RICHARDSON

locally employed workers are better off then commuting workers, and the labor
market equilibrium is disturbed. Similarly,if housing expenditures decline with
distance by less than the corresponding increase in commuting costs, the more
central locations are the more desirable and the land market equilibrium is
disturbed. Of course, this problem is not insuperable, provided that local
employment is the only alternative to CBD employment. It merely implies that
labor and land market equilibria have to be determined simultaneously. For any
marginal change in location the sum ~f the change in land rents and the change
in money wages per period (e.g., per month) must be equal to the change in
commuting costs. However, some degree of determinacy is lost because there is
no longer a unique equilibrium in each market. Manycombinations of negative
wage and land rent gradients are possible with any given commuting cost-
distance function.
The real problems begin when non-CBD employment ceases to be minis-
cule and uniformly dispersed. Both the huge proportion of non-CBD employment
(92 percent) and the continued strength of agglomeration economies (as
economies of spatial concentration not centralization) imply the presence of
employment subcenters that pull in labor from beyond their immediate locale.
This raises the possibility of outward commuting, a phenomenon that creates
havoc with the structure of the monocentric model. First, to attract outward-
moving commuters employers must offer them more than they would earn locally
(to compensate them for commuting costs), and because local and non-local
homogeneous workers have to be offered the same wage this destroys the con-
cept of the negative wage gradient. I t also destroys the negative land rent
gradient because sites close to the subcenter workplace would be at a premium
because of the supra-equilibriumwage levels offered there. Second, unless it is
possible to assume a distance within which all workers commute inwards and
beyond which all workers commute outwards, it becomes impossible to predict
the demand for land for road use in an endogenous transportation costs model,
and this failure undermines the capacity to derive a land market equilibrium.
Wieand (1987) deals with this problem by identifying both a short-run and a long-
run labor supply area for a subcenter in a two-center model so that the labor
market areas of two centers remain clearly distinct, as the system adjusts
towards a long-runequilibrium. But this is far from satisfactory. As shown by
Sub (1988), each individual commutes to the nearest center to his home only if
all centers are homogeneous. Cross-commutingis very commonin practice, and
the explanation is spatial heterogeneity. For instance, consider two cities
contiguous to each other. Assume a degree of heterogeneity, say, that the
quality of life in one city is better than in the other. Then the city with the
lower quality of life will have to offer higher wages as compensation. As a
result, some people will choose to live in the city with the higher quality of life
and commute to the city paying the higher wages (in this case, inter-center wage
differentials vary by more than the commuting costs). Center heterogeneity
could result from a wide range of factors, including employment mix. Commut-
ing to the nearest employment center is plausible only if we assume that
journey-to-work minimizationis the sole determinant of residential location or if
we introduce some artificial institutional restrictions, such as residency require-
ments for jobs in the two contiguous cities case. With two-worker households
and non-CBD employment, one worker may commute to the city center and the
other to a suburban workplace. If commuting costs ar e higher for the suburban
worker, the bid rent function may be positively sloped along a ray from the city
center at a distance inside the suburbanemployment site (Curran et al., 1982).
 MONOCENTRIC VS. POLICENTRIC MODELS

In a model where work sites are endogenous, some of the worst problems
can be avoided by assuming that time costs are excluded from commuting
costs. This allows commuting costs and the wage gradient to be treated as
exogenous to the model (Solow, 1973b; White, 1976; Brueckner, 1978; Sullivan,
1983; Straszheim, 1984). In these models, households commute to a workplace
more central than their home, thereby obviating the outward commuting
problem. But if time costs are arguments in the utility function, the wage offer
function will vary with place of residence because more commuting time means
less leisure time (Straszheim, 1987). Bid rent and wage offer functions are
interdependent, and are endogenous. Equilibrium conditions in the land and labor
markets can only be found by solving complex differential equations. No one has
developed such a model.
It is possible that all these complications can be accommodated within the
framework of the monocentric model Wieand's(1987) analysis illustrates some
of the possibilities. The formation of a subcenter with its own labor supply area
leads to a period of core center decline (depressed property values, declining
employment, less intensive land uses, and a reduction in land and capital used in
core center export production) as the city adjusts to a two-center long run
equilibrium; however, the CBD remains viable and intact. But the beauty of the
monocentric model is its elegance, clarity and simple predictions. Once it loses
these qualities, the disadvantages associated with its lack of realism become
more compelling. Designing a true policentric model may be preferable to
artificial and unconvincing complications of the monocentric model.
The argument that there is no alternative to the monocentric model
ignores the research into the development of a policentric theory of
metropolitan spatial structure over the past decade. The more accurate
situation is that there is as yet no standard policentric model because theorists
have run down different tracks and some analytical problems remain to be solved
(e.g., the endogenous determination of the location of subeenters). One
distinction in the literature is between models that prespecify the location of
subcenters (e.g., Papagergiou, 1971; Papageorgiou and Casetti, 1971; Hartwick
and Hartwick, 1974; Romanos, 1977; Straszheim, 1973 and 1975; White, 1976;
Curran et al., 1982) and those that show conditions under which policentrism
might emerge without discussing where the centers may be located; the so-called
non-monocentric models (Lave, 1973; Borukhov and Hochman, 1977; Miyao, 1977;
Odland, 1978; Ogawa and Fujita, 1980, Fujita and Ogawa, 1982; Peiser, 1982).
The latter models are more interesting, but many of them become intractable
because locational indeterminacy often results when the location of employment
subcenters and the spatial distribution of population are determined
simultaneously. Another problem is that it is difficult to account for the growth
of subeenters as the cumulative aggregation of atomistie location decisions by
individual firms. Thus, a few models (Peiser, 1982; Wieand, 1987) assign a
critical role to a developer who assesses the profit potential of a particular site
that might be missed by individual firms because o f their inability to take full
account of externalities. The developer in question eould be either a private
entrepreneur or corporation or a public agency.
Some of the models (White, 1976; Wieand, 1987) t r e a t policentrism in
terms of the formation of a suburban employment node along a ray from the
CBD within an essentially monocentric spatial framework. Although suggestive
from some perspectives, this approach has at least three major drawbacks.
First, land and labor market equilibrium can be derived only if workers commute
inwards from within the purely residential district (i.e., from locations nearer to
 HARRY W. RICHARDSON

the city center than the monopsonisticlabor supply area of the suburban node).
Second, this treatment is at odds with the radial symmetry usually assumed in
monocentric models. Rotating the ray in a circular city generates an annulus of
business activity, an implausible representation of non-CBD employment except
in the very special case of commercial strip development alongside a
metropolitan beltway. Third, the transformation of a monocentric into a
policentric city does not typically proceed from one, to two, then three and more
centers because it is difficult for a second center to compete with the superior
location of the CBD. Instead,the CBD is more successfully challenged when
several subcenters develop simultaneously(Lave, 1973; Miyao, 1977). However,
unless these subcenters are located symmetrically (e.g., four or eight
subcenters), the analysis requires a discrete model (e.g., a rectangular grid of m
x n zones) rather than the continuousmodelbeloved by economic theorists.
The switch from continuous to discrete spatial models is both a constraint
and an opportunity. The constraint is that it is difficult to analyze the discrete
models w i t h the mathematical methods traditionally employed by urban
economic theorists. The opportunity is that the microcomputer revolution
(discussed by Kain, 1987, pp. 867-71), and the trend towards cheaper and faster
machines with more memoryand storage capacity and dramatic improvements in
graphics and mappingprograms, can be exploited to test economic theories, and
the discrete models are ideally suited for this different type of testing. Urban
economists have been apologetic in the past about having to fall back on
numerical solutions when their models could not be solved analytically. The
danger was that one or two numerical solutions might turn out to be special
cases and not representative of a general result. But so many parametric
variations can be examined at close to zero marginal cost via microcomputer
testing that the generality of results can easily be determined. Moreover, in
addition to modelling subcenters, other desirable model attributes such as
introducing durable but replaceable capital are much easier to incorporate into a
microcomputer model than into a model that has to be solved analytically.
In terms of the driving force of a policentric model a simple idea is that
the strength of the CBD depends upon a comparison of CBD agglomeration
economies (perhaps a S-shaped function) with CBD (or central city) congestion
costs (a standard U-shaped function) as city size increases. In the early and
intermediate phases of urban growth, net CBD agglomeration economies are so
strong that more employment locations are created via a more intensive
development of CBD land and spatial extensions of the CBD itself. However,
eventually the gap between the agglomeration economies and the congestion
functions narrows and the functions may ultimately intersect. By this time the
CBD retains no locational advantages over alternative metropolitan sites. To
avoid implausible and sudden relocation rates from the CBD, a probabilistic
model could be developed in which the probability of new firms and CBD
expanding firms choosing a subcenter location as opposed to the CBD is an
inverse function of the agglomeration economies-congestioncosts gap.
The key to a satisfactory policentric model is the endogenousgeneration
of subcenters. Again, a probabilistic model is appropriate because more zones in
the metropolitan area could potentially qualify as subeenters than are needed
and for which there are land conversion resources available. Also, from among
the available high-potential sites there may be a degree of arbitrariness in how
subcenters are selected dependingon the role of the developer. Even if market
models of location could explain most of the subcentering phenomenon, an
"anchorMof critical mass may be needed for a subcenter to form, and this will
 MONOCENTRIC VS. POUCENTRIC MODELS

almost always be the result of a developer agent initiative (not necessarily

private). In the common case where a private developer is operating in a
metropolitan area containing several separate but contiguous cities, the choice
of subcenter may be difficult to identify deterministieaUy because it may depend
on tax and infrastructure concessions offered by individual cities. This also
justifies a probabilistie model
Thus, in a rectangular grid metropolitan area of m x n zones (or, if
preferred, in a circular city with m__rings, each having n segments) each zone
may be assigned a probability coefficient of it becoming a subcenter. These
probabilities may be a function of several variables: available land (either empty
or in low-conversion-cost uses), transportation accessibility, labor pool access,
land rents, tax rates and zoning regulations (in a multi-jurisdictional
metropolitan area), quadratic distance from the CBD, other measures of
agglomeration economies and congestion costs. Obviously,there are many
alternative specifications of a sub-center probability function. A few
observations may be made. First, in an endogenousmodel key parameters in the
function must change as a result of the process of metropolitan growth. Second,
the model must be dynamic as these probabilities change substantially over
time. Third, most of the zones will have very low values so that subcenter
choices are quite restricted. Fourth, because subcenters may specialize in
different economic activities (an industrial park, a shopping mall, an office
subcenter, a university or a hospital), subcenter formation functions may vary
according to type of activity. Fifth, the subcenters vs. CBD competition
becomes clearer if agglomeration economies and congestion costs are key
variables in the subcenter function. In such a case, in a highly disaggregated
model spatially (e.g., with census tracts as zones), it would be possible to
compare the probability of forming a subcenter with the alternative of extending
the boundaries of the CBD.
If a convincing and comprehensive theory of the policentric metropolitan
area remains a little elusive, recent empirical research on policentric cities
casts doubt on the validity of the major predictions of the standard monocentric
model. The normal result that the spatial variation in house prices and land
values can be satisfactorily explained in terms of declining distance from the
CBD is, upon closer inspection, seen to be usually derived from descriptive
statistics, or plausible numerical simulations, or from misspecified hedonie price
models. If employment subcenters have become important, it would be very
surprising if they were having no influence on the metropolitan distribution of
house prices and land values. Nor is this solely a Los Angeles phenomenon,even
if Los Angeles can claim to be the prototype of the policentric metropolitan
area. That urban growth in American cities is taking the form of spawningnew
urban cores is recognized even in the media. For example, a WashingtonPost
analysis (Washington Post, March 8, 1987), used thresholds of office space and
retail space, more in- than out-commuting, more jobs than houses, and mixed
uses (e.g., entertainment as well as shopping and jobs). In the Washington,D.C.
area, for instance, 14 subcenters were identified, and the largest of them
(Tyson's Corner) already has one-quarter of the office space of downtown, and
more office space than all but 15 downtowns in the nation (as recently as the
1950s only a crossroads general store was there). Similar patterns are emerging
in other major cities (6 centers around Atlanta, 6 aroundBaltimore, 9 subcanters
in Chicago, and so on). In the Los Angeles metropolitan region (five-county
area), 18 subeenters have been identified using worktrip generation rates per
acre for 1980 (Gordon, 1987). These 18 centers accounted for 20 percent more
 HARRY W. RICHARDSON

jobs than the core area (much larger than the CBD), and together.the 19 centers
accounted for 17.5 percent of the five-county area's job total. This last statistic
underlines the point that in Los Angeles jobs are highly dispersed (the co-
existence of large numbers of dispersed jobs and sizeable job clusters presents
more problems for the analysis of metropolitan spatial structure, especially if--
as seems probable--dispersed workplaces attract workers from a distance). The
Los Angeles phenomenon has also generated new terminologies to replace the
CBD-subcenter comparisons; these include the analogy of "constellations" in a
metropolitan "galaxy" and the cosier idea of "urban-villages" (Lockwood and
Leinberger, 1988).
Several studies of Chicago (Smith, 1978; Bender and Hwang, 1985;
McDonald and Bowman, 1979; McDonald, 1987) have shown that several
employment subcenters (Cicero, the Northwest city and suburban zone, and
especially O'Hare Airport) have an influence on house prices and land values. In
Dallas, proximity to suburban nodes (Prestonwood, Central/LBJ and Preston
Center) had an influence on the value of office but not commercial or industrial
land (Peiser, 1987). In the most detailed study (Heikkila, et al., 1987), involving
I 1,000 single family home sales prices in 1980--again in Los Angeles, eight nodes
plus the Pacific Ocean had a significant spatial impact on house prices. Two of
the nodes had positive distance elasticities, indicating a repelling effect on house
prices. The most striking result was the influence of distance to the CBD. Of
all the independent variables in this hedonic price model that yielded a R2 of
0.93, only the CBD accessibility variable was statistically insignificant. The t-
statistic was miserable (0.31), the size of the elasticity coefficient was very
small, and the sign on the coefficient was positive. This result should not be
misunderstood. It does not suggest that accessibility is unimportant for Los
Angeles residents, but it does emphasize that it is accessibility to nodes other
than the CBD and to the ocean that counts.
Another implication of this research is that policentric cities should be
conceived of in broader terms than a system of employment nodes. Metropolitan
residents demand accessibility to destinations other than workplaces. The ocean
is the most obvious example, but the dominant node in the study was Santa
Monica. This cannot be explained in terms of its employment pull, because Santa
Monica in 1980 had only 37,300 jobs (about 10 percent of the jobs in the core
area). Instead, distance to Santa Monica probably represents a more general
"Westside effect," including access to many of the region's best shops and
restaurants and proximity to high-status resideptial neighborhoods(Beverly Hills,
Brentwood, Bel Air, Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica). Similarly, the repelling
effect of two other nodes (South Bay and Southwest San Fernando Valley) reflect
low social status, crime fears and limited entertainment and recreational
facilities. This argument is strengthened by the rapid growth of non-worktrips in
recent years (an increase of up to 71 percent in the smallest city size class
between 1977 and 1983), and by the modest and declining share of worktrips in
total trips (less than 20 percent).
The negative density gradient prediction of the monocentric model is a
corollary of the negative rent gradient. The density gradient finding has been
challenged in several ways (that alternatives to the negative exponential
function are more convincing, that its estimation methods need refinement, and
that urbanized area data should be used rather than SMSA data), but almost all
the critiques retained the monocentricity assumption. One major exception is
research by Grifflth (198 la, 198 Ib) who developed a hybrid model, incorporating
multiple centers, trend-surface analysis and externalities among locations. A
 MONOCENTRIC VS. POLICENTRIC MODELS

replication with 1970 data of Muth's (1969) test of the monocentric density
gradient that found 40 significant relationships in 46 cities using 1950 data
discovered that the gradient failed in more than one-half of the cities (Anjomani
and Chimene, 1982); almost certainly, a test on 1980 data would yield an even
worse result for the monocentric density gradient model. Another Los Angeles
study (Gordon, Richardson and Wong, 1986) identified 58 policentric population
density peaks in the five-county area, and the policentric density surface fits
much better than the monocentric density gradient. Interestingly, the spatial
distribution of employment could be more satisfactorily represented by seven
employment nodes, and integrating the areas under the density cones accounts
for almost all the region's jobs. (A topic for future research is why the Los
Angeles studies generate different numbers of subcenters, 57 for population
density, 6 for employment density, 8 for house prices, and 18 based on trip
generation rates per acre).
Some of the most interesting empirical findings relevant to assessing the
relative merits of monocentric and policentric models refer to commuting
behavior. In the strict monocentric model with centralized jobs, congestion must
increase and/or worktrips lengthen as city size increases because all the urban
land cannot be converted into road space and/or the average commuter lives
further out. Moreover,comparing estimates of the optimum commute based on
the hypothesis of monocentrie population and employment density gradients with
actual commutes, Hamilton (1982) found that the latter were eight times longer
than the former. A policentric metropolitan region could be associated with
either longer commutes if workers engaged in substantial cross-commuting or
with shorter commutes if workers chose residential sites close to the subcenter
where they work and/or firms decentralize primarily to improve access to
suburban labor pools. Our research studies at the University of Southern
California suggest that policentric spatial structures facilitate commuting
economies, and that the commuting economies achieved contradict the predic-
tions of the monocentric model. First, residential densities and commuting
times are positively associated, consistent with the argument that low-density
metropolitan areas with their decentralized employment centers facilitate
shorter worktrips (Gordon, Kumar and Richardson, 1986). Second, in the Los
Angeles metropolitan region intracounty commuting trips in the peripheral
counties are only 30-40 percent of their length in the core county (Gordon~
Richardson and Wong, 1986). Third, census data show that nationally the group
with the shortest time commutes are those who both live and work in the
suburbs, while the worst off are those who live in the suburbs and work in the
CBD (the prototypical commuter in monocentric cities) (Gordon, Kumar and
Richardson, 1987a), Fourth, travel speeds do not vary with city size and peak
travel speeds improved slightly between 1977 and 1983, results that conflict with
the monocentric model (Gordon, Kumar and Richardson, 1987a). Fifth, the
spatial decentralization that has resulted in commuting economies has also
permitted a dramatic increase in non-work travel (Gordon, Kumar and Richard-
son, 1987b). All this research supports the argument that both firms and house-
holds have been relocating and settling close to each other, facilitating shorter
trips and relieving core-area congestion. These benefits are found in all city size
classes, but are enjoyed more by suburban than by central city residents.
Two concluding observations might be mentioned, one referring to theory,
the other to policy. The main challenge to theoretical urban analysis is to make
the location of employment fully endogenous. It is very difficult to make
progress on this front with monocentric models. The best attempts typically end
 HARRYW. RICHARDSON

up with two distinct sectors, one business and the other residential, with a
flexible land use boundary.
Even more important is the fact that monocentric modes of thinking
result in wrongheaded policy prescriptions. In transport planning CBD-oriented
assumptions have generated demands for inappropriate radial public transit
solutions. Economicdevelopment policies to retain core city jobs and promote
downtown revival are usually both costly and inefficient. Finally, the
monocentric model treats the worktrip as the only type of travel; ignoring the
rapid growth in nonwork travel runs the risk of missing creative opportunities for
road congestion pricing, housing developments location and other land use
policies.

REFERENCES

Anjomani, A. and L. Chimene (1982), "Urban population and employment

densities in relation to transportation energy consumption," Arlington,
Texas: University of Texas at Arlington, City and Regional Planning
Department.
Bender, B. and H. Hwang (1985), "Hedonic house price indices and secondary
employment centers,~ Journal of Urban Economics, 17, 90-I07.
Borukhov, E. and O. Hochman (1977), "Optimum and market equilibrium in a
model of a city without a predetermined center," Environment and Planning
A, 9, 849-856.
Brueckner, J. (1978), "Urban general equilibrium models with non-central
production," Journal of Regional Science, 18, 203-15.
Curran, C., L. Carlson and D. Ford (1982), "A theory of residential location
decisions of two-worker households," Journal of Urban Economics, 12, 102-
I13.
Fujita, M. and H. Ogawa (1982), "Multiple equilibria and structural transition of
non-monocentric urban configurations," Regional Science and Urban
Economics, 12, 161-196.
Gordon, P. (1987), "Transit options for non-CBD activity centers," Los Angeles:
University of Southern California, School of Urban and Regional Planning,
mimeo.
Gordon, P., Kumar, A., and H. W. Richardson (1986), "The influence of
metropolitan spatial structure on commuting time," Journal of Urban
Economics, forthcoming.
Gordon, P., A. Kumar and H. W. Richardson (1987a), "Congestion and city size,"
Los Angeles: University of Southern California, School of Urban and
Regional Planning, mimeo.
Gordon, P., A. Kumar and H. W. Richardson (1987b), ~Beyond the journey to
work," Los Angeles: Universityof Southern California, School of Urban and
Regional Planning, mlmeo.
Gordon, P., H. W. Richardson and H. L. Wong (1986), "The distribution of
population and employment in a policentric city: The case of Los Angeles,"
Environment and Planning A, 18, 161-173.
Griffith, D. A. (198la), "Evaluating the transformation from a monocentric to a
policentric city," Professional Geo~ra~)her, 33, 189-196.
Griffith, D. A. (1981b), "Modelling urban population density in a multicentered
city," Journal of Urban Economies, 9, 298-310.
Hamilton, B. W. (1982), "Wasteful commuting,"Journal of Political Economy,90,
I035-I053.

10
 MONOCENTRIC VS. P O L I C E N T R I C MODELS

Harris, B., "Urban simulation in regional science," Journal of Regional Scienc_.~e

25,545-567.
Hartwick, P. G. and J. M. Hartwick (1974), "Efficient resource allocation in a
multinucleated city with intermediate goods," Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 88,340-352.
Heikkila, E., D. Dale-Johnson, P. Gordon, J. I. Kim, R. B. Peiser and H. W.
Richardson (1987), "What happened to the CBD-distance gradient?: land
values in a policantric city," Environment and Planning A, forthcoming.
Kain, J. F. (1987), "Computer simulation models of urban location," 847-875, in
E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Vol. 2, Urban
Economics. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Lave, L. B. (1974), "Urban externalities," 37-95, in Centre for Environmental
Studies, Papers from the Urban Economics Conference 1973, Vol. l,
London: Centre for Environmental Studies, Conference Paper 9.
Lockwood, C. and C. B. Leinberger (1988), "Los Angeles comes of age," Th__~e
Atlantic Monthly, January 1988, 31-56.
McDonald, J. F. (1987), "The identification of urban employment subeenters,"
Journal of Urban Economics, 2 l, 242-258.
McDonald, J. F. and H. W. Bowman (1979), "Land value functions: a re-
evaluation," Journal of Urban Economics~ 6, 25-4 I.
Mills, E. S., ed. (1987), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Volume 2:
Urban Economics. Amsterdam, North-Holland.
Mirrlees, J. A. (1972), "The optimum town," Swedish Journal of Economics, 74,
I14-135.
Miyao, T. (1977), "The optimum number of business districts in a square city."
Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Department of Economics,
mimeo.
Miyao, T. (1987), "Dynamicurban models," 877-925, in E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook
of Regional and Urban Economics, Vol. II, Urban Economics, Amsterdam:
North-Holland.
Muth, R. F. (1985), "Models of land-use, housing, and rent: an evaluation,"
Journal of Regional Science, 25,593-606.
Odland, J. (1978), "The conditions for multi-center cities," Economic Geography_,
54, 234-244.
Ogawa, H. and M. Fu]ita (1980), "Equilibrium land use patterns in a non-
monocentric city," Journal of Regional Science, 20, 455-475.
Papageorgiou, G. (1971), "The population density and rent distribution model
within a multicenter framework," Environment and Planning, 3, 267-282.
Papageorgiou, G. and E. Casetti (1971), "Spatial equilibrium residential land
values in a multicenter setting," Journal of Regional Science, l I, 385-389.
Peiser, R. B. (1982), "On the emergence of subcenters in a non-monocentric
city," Paper presented at Regional Science Association, North American
Meeting. Pittsburgh, November 12.
Peiser, R. B. (1987), "The determinants of nonresidential urban land values,"
Journal of Urban Economics, 22, 340-360.
Romanos, M. C., "Household location in a linear multi-center Metropolitan
Area," Regional Science and Urban Economies, 7 (1977), 233-250.
Smith, B. (1978), "Measuring the value of urban amenities," Journal of Urban
Economics~ 5,370-387.
Solow, R. M. (1972), "Congestion, density and the use of land in transportation,"
Swedish Journal of Economics, 74, 161-173.
Solow, R. M. (1973a), "Congestion costs and the use of land for streets," Bel._!l

11
 HARRY W. RICHARDSON

Journal of Economicsand Management Science, 4,602-619.

Solow, R. M. (1973b), "On equilibrium models of urban spatial structure," 2-16, in
M. J. Parkin (ed.), Essays in Modern Economics. London: Longmans.
Straszheim, M. (1973), "Estimation 'of the demand for urban housing services
from household interview data," Review of Economicsand Statistics~ 55, I-8.
Straszheim, M. (1975), An Econometric Analysis of the Urban Housing Market.
New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press.
Straszheim, M. (1984), "Urban agglomeration effects and employment and wage
gradients," JournaI of. Urban Economics, 16, 187-207.
Straszheim, M. (1987), "The theory of urban residential location," 717-57, in E. S.
Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Vol. If, Urban
Economics (North-Holland, Amsterdam).
Sub, S. H. (1988), "The possibility and impossibility of intercity commuting,"
Journal of Urban Eco_nomies, 23.
Sullivan, A. (1983), "A general equilibrium model with external scale economies
in production," Journal of Urban Economics~ 13, 235-55.
White, M. J. (1976), "Firm suburbanization and urban subcenters," Journal of
Urban Econom!cs~3,323-342.
Wieand, K. F. (1987), "An extension of the monocentrie urban spatial equilibrium
model to a multicenter setting: the case of the two-center city," Journal of
Urban Economics, 21, 259-27I.
Wiean~, K. F. (1987), "The Los Angelization of the Suburbs," Washington Post,
March 8.

12