Managing megacities

Alonso, in a seminal paper written in 1971 develops the following argument: urban benefits increase with city size in a less than proportional way. Urban costs increase with city size in a more than proportional way. There comes a point where urban costs are greater than urban benefits: this point defines an optimal size. Beyond that point, cities are too big. This view completely omits a key factor: urban management. Urban benefits and urban costs are not merely a function of city size. The..