According to the established literature, mega cities have agglomeration advantages that make them the economic powerhouses of our world. This is an outdated idea, says Evert Meijers (OTB). The medium-sized cities of today often perform better. He was granted a Vidi scholarship by NWO to investigate this claim further.

For decades now, the generally accepted view on the economic power of cities has been 'the bigger the stronger'. A large city simply has more to offer businesses and citizens than a village. Citizens are attracted by better employment opportunities, a lively nightlife and good prospects for further development. A business in a mega city is nearby vital infrastructures, knowledge centres and specialised services and so is assured of higher productivity. This is why economists say that countries with mega cities have important economic advantages and they encourage such cities to grow further. "It sounds logical, but it is incorrect," says Evert Meijers. “The 'agglomerative power' of a city depends much more on the degree to which it is connected to various networks. So cities are advised to invest in connectivity rather than in increasing their populations."

Meijers laid the foundations for this assertion in his publication "The competitive position of Dutch cities: from agglomerative power to network power" (De concurrentiepositie van Nederlandse steden. Van agglomeratiekracht naar netwerkkracht). Metropolises are not growing to the detriment of regional cities. On the contrary, the data reveal that medium-sized cities are growing much faster than the real metropolises. This is important news, because it may mean that the regional development policies are based on completely incorrect hypotheses.

The competitiveness of the Dutch cities that he studied proved to be determined by their position in international, national and regional networks of trade, knowledge and foreign investment. What's more, such relatively small cities are able to borrow agglomerative power from each other, so they are stronger together. This is to the benefit of cities like Rotterdam (freight flows) and Amsterdam (finance and knowledge), which have widely diverse networks and very different competitors. Meijers: “The individual cities in the Randstad conurbation are relatively small. They can compensate for this disadvantage by strengthening their networks and by improving the integration with other medium-sized cities." If they do this they will be well placed to compete with the really big cities like London, Paris and Rome.

The Vidi scholarship (€800,000) allowed him to test his claim, for example by comparing data on how the spatial distribution of house prices, productivity figures and wages has developed over time. But he will also focus on the disadvantages of agglomeration such as congestion, criminality and air pollution. Do these follow a distance-decay function? Or do the smaller municipalities profit from the agglomeration effects of the medium-sized cities? Meijers: "My expectation is that the benefits are distributed over entire regions via the various networks. If I am right, then the term 'agglomeration advantage' is obsolete."

Published: May 2015

More information

• Publication 'De concurrentiepositie van Nederlandse steden. Van agglomeratiekracht naar netwerkkracht' (Dutch only)