Interurban population distribution and commute modes
Résumé
This paper explores the interplay between trade costs and urban costs within a new economic geography model in which workers are mobile. As in former research, we show that workers tend at the same time to agglomerate in order to limit trade costs of manufactured goods and to scatter in order to alleviate the burden of urban costs due to large urban areas. In this paper, special attention is paid to the role of congestion, which acts as a dispersion force and hampers workers from agglomerating in the same urban area. We show that the development of public transport, or the construction of road infrastructure, modifies the spatial organization of the economy and fosters agglomeration, as it reduces congestion.