AN ECONOMIC POLICY HYPOTHESIS OF METROPOLITAN GROWTH CYCLES: A Reflection on the Recent Rejuvenation of Tokyo*
Rejecting the simplistic lifeâ€ cycle hypothesis of cities put forth by Klassen and Paelinck, this paper advances a new hypothesis for the cyclical movements of urban growth that have taken place on a worldâ€ wide scale. The recent rejuvenation of major industrialized cities is largely attributed to the shift in the government's economic policies toward a smaller government, supported by the existence of economies of scale in large cities. The paper closely examines Tokyo's recent rejuvenation and shows how the government's conservative economic policies of the 1980's helped reverse the declining trend of the previous decade.
The Future of Large Towns
A number of important facts about the growth and decline of European cities, classified according to their sizes, are presented. They are interpreted in terms of population, households, and occupancy rates. In terms of these variables, two dynamic models are presented, the properties of which are discussed in terms of some strategic parameters.
The Use of Qualitative Information in Macro-Economic Policy Analysis
The majority of macro-economic policy models takes for granted that conflicts among objectives can be assessed by means of a tradeoff analysis. Such tradeoffs imply that sacrifices and benefits of various impacts of decisions can be measured on a cardinal scale, so that a conventional macro-economic utility or welfare analysis can be applied.