The comparison of cities with regard to their economic or demographic development may yield misleading results, if solely the cities in their administrative borders are the object of consideration. Frequently, historical borders of cities neither conform to the contemporary settlement...

The question regarding the effects of changing transports costs on the size distribution of cities is an important topic of systems of cities research. The so-called New Economic Geography has already given some answers to this question. One central assumption in this kind of model is a very...