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Between the nineteenth and twentieth centureis, the regions of the United States went from a set of relatively isolated regional economies to an integrated national economy. Economic integration, as we as long-run secular changes in the economic structure associated with economic growth, played an important role in determining U.S. regional industrial structures. Moreover, although differences in regional industrial structures do not explain all the variations in regional income per capita, they played an important role in causing U.S. regional incomes to diverge and converge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A growing empirical literature links political centralization with urban development. In this paper we present evidence showing how different patterns of political centralization in the United States and Canada affected urban agglomeration during the twentieth century, with a specific focus on the impact on the population of capital cities. Using data on Canadian and US cities and metropolitan areas, we find that the national capital effect on population grew over time in both countries but more so in the United States whereas the subnational (i.e., provincial or state) capital effect rose much more significantly in Canada than in the United States, controlling for other factors like geography and climate. We argue that these patterns in the national and subnational capital city effects reflect different trends in federalism in the two countries. In the United States, the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian tradition of states' rights and localism was transformed into a more nationally centralized form of federalism during the Progressive Era, but states and localities continued to retain significant autonomy. In Canada, federalism came to favor provincial rights but not localism. We believe that that these diverging trends were driven by institutional differences that gave the various levels of governments in Canada and the United States different access to revenue sources.

International audience ; This chapter documents the historical evolution of the US urban system. From a handful of port cities in the colonial period, there was a sustained urban growth from 1830 to the twentieth century. While the initial rise is associated with a transportation revolution and early industrialization, regional shocks associated with immigration, second industrial revolution, gold and oil discoveries, and land speculation give special character to US urban development. The rank-size analysis of city sizes shows that there were three periods of urban hierarchy, largely coinciding with functional evolutions of cities: first, as regional mercantile centers; second, as national, industrial-mercantile, densely built cities; and, third as post-industrial, service-oriented, metropolitan, suburban places. A more detailed analysis of post-industrial cities shows that innovations in services such as finance, insurance and real estate contribute significantly to the concentration of few large metropolitan areas whereas manufacturing and retail tend toward medium and smaller cities. The larger cities were considerably more economically diverse than smaller cities, and a spatial analysis indicates that cities tend to co-evolve as they compete to grow. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the impact of political institutions on urban development. In contrast to developments in Latin America and Canada, American federalism that grants significant political authority to state and localities has significantly impacted US urban and rural development.

International audience ; This chapter documents the historical evolution of the US urban system. From a handful of port cities in the colonial period, there was a sustained urban growth from 1830 to the twentieth century. While the initial rise is associated with a transportation revolution and early industrialization, regional shocks associated with immigration, second industrial revolution, gold and oil discoveries, and land speculation give special character to US urban development. The rank-size analysis of city sizes shows that there were three periods of urban hierarchy, largely coinciding with functional evolutions of cities: first, as regional mercantile centers; second, as national, industrial-mercantile, densely built cities; and, third as post-industrial, service-oriented, metropolitan, suburban places. A more detailed analysis of post-industrial cities shows that innovations in services such as finance, insurance and real estate contribute significantly to the concentration of few large metropolitan areas whereas manufacturing and retail tend toward medium and smaller cities. The larger cities were considerably more economically diverse than smaller cities, and a spatial analysis indicates that cities tend to co-evolve as they compete to grow. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the impact of political institutions on urban development. In contrast to developments in Latin America and Canada, American federalism that grants significant political authority to state and localities has significantly impacted US urban and rural development.

International audience ; This chapter documents the historical evolution of the US urban system. From a handful of port cities in the colonial period, there was a sustained urban growth from 1830 to the twentieth century. While the initial rise is associated with a transportation revolution and early industrialization, regional shocks associated with immigration, second industrial revolution, gold and oil discoveries, and land speculation give special character to US urban development. The rank-size analysis of city sizes shows that there were three periods of urban hierarchy, largely coinciding with functional evolutions of cities: first, as regional mercantile centers; second, as national, industrial-mercantile, densely built cities; and, third as post-industrial, service-oriented, metropolitan, suburban places. A more detailed analysis of post-industrial cities shows that innovations in services such as finance, insurance and real estate contribute significantly to the concentration of few large metropolitan areas whereas manufacturing and retail tend toward medium and smaller cities. The larger cities were considerably more economically diverse than smaller cities, and a spatial analysis indicates that cities tend to co-evolve as they compete to grow. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the impact of political institutions on urban development. In contrast to developments in Latin America and Canada, American federalism that grants significant political authority to state and localities has significantly impacted US urban and rural development.