Thompson Growth and Migration The Rate of Local Growth is the Change in City Size A national policy on the size distribution of cities that does not also incorporate a position on the rate of growth of local populations, that is, the rate of change in city size, would soon be obsolete. One might, in fact, argue that local well-being is more immediately sensitive to rate of growth than to city size, and that the "proper" pattern of city sizes might better be de-rived from the preferred pattern of local growth rates. But, while there have been many studies of actual urban growth patterns, the literature has little to offer on the optimum rate of local growth in population, or even the analyst s own preferred rate of

DOI link for Thompson Growth and Migration The Rate of Local Growth is the Change in City Size A national policy on the size distribution of cities that does not also incorporate a position on the rate of growth of local populations, that is, the rate of change in city size, would soon be obsolete. One might, in fact, argue that local well-being is more immediately sensitive to rate of growth than to city size, and that the "proper" pattern of city sizes might better be de-rived from the preferred pattern of local growth rates. But, while there have been many studies of actual urban growth patterns, the literature has little to offer on the optimum rate of local growth in population, or even the analyst s own preferred rate of

Thompson Growth and Migration The Rate of Local Growth is the Change in City Size A national policy on the size distribution of cities that does not also incorporate a position on the rate of growth of local populations, that is, the rate of change in city size, would soon be obsolete. One might, in fact, argue that local well-being is more immediately sensitive to rate of growth than to city size, and that the "proper" pattern of city sizes might better be de-rived from the preferred pattern of local growth rates. But, while there have been many studies of actual urban growth patterns, the literature has little to offer on the optimum rate of local growth in population, or even the analyst s own preferred rate of