Patterns of City Growth

Abstract

Residential construction is proposed as the mechanism whereby city-wide population growth is translated into population redistribution from mature to relatively undeveloped areas. Cohort analysis of Los Angeles residential areas indicates that the rapidity of redistribution varies directly with both the rate iof population growth and the ratio of new dwellings to incremental population. The accelerted redistribution in the immediate postwar period, coupled with the maturity of central cities and the rigidity of their corporate limits, resulted in the so-called flight to the suburbs.