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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 11: Traffic Dynamics, Urban and Regional Systems II
SOE 11.5: Talk
Wednesday, March 29, 2023, 17:45–18:00, ZEU 260
Long-range correlations in city systems — Yunfei Li1, Jan W. Kantelhardt2, Celine Rozenblat3, and •Diego Rybski1,4 — 1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research - PIK, Member of Leibniz Association, P.O. Box 601203, 14412 Potsdam, Germany — 2Institute of Physics, Martin-Luther-University, Halle (Saale), Germany — 3Institute of Geography and Sustainability, Faculty of Geoscience, University of Lausanne; — 4Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Josefstädterstrasse 39, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
City systems are characterized by the functional organization of cities on a regional or country scale. While there is relatively good empirical and theoretical understanding of city size distributions, insights about their spatial organization remain on a conceptual level. Here we analyze empirically the correlations between the sizes of cities (in terms of area) across long distances. Therefore, we (i) define city clusters, (ii) obtain the neighborhood network from Voronoi cells, and (iii) apply a fluctuation analysis along all shortest paths. We find that most European countries exhibit long-range correlations but in several cases these are anti-correlations. In an analogous way we study a model inspired by Central Places Theory and find that depending on the level of disorder, both positive and negative long-range correlations can be simulated. We conclude that the interactions between cities of different sizes extend over distances reaching country scale.