Optimum city size: A minimum congestion cost approach☆
Abstract The optimal allocation of urban land between the generation of traffic and the carrying of traffic which minimizes congestion costs is derived for a circular city. Unlike previous work which dealt only with the suburbs, this paper deals with both the suburbs and the central business district. This wider view of the problem leads to different conclusions, the most important of which is the fact that at no point in the city is all the land used for transportation. Existence of a maximum size for a city of a given working population, which is independent of relative land and congestion costs, is also discussed with special reference to the case where there is no land rent.