infrastructure

Economic activity is not distributed uniformly (or randomly) across space. Economic activity has long been highly concentrated in cities. Moreover, larger city size is associated with a greater rate of innovation.[1] The exact mechanism by which concentration of person in geographic space fosters innovation is not well-understood, but the effect is clear. Community-based networks, such … Continue reading network micro-geography

One of the best-supported empirical economic models is known as the gravity equation. According to this equation, trade between two regions is proportional to the product of economic activity (GDP) in the two regions divided by the inter-region distance raised to about 0.9.[1] This relationship is formally similar to Newton’s law of universal gravitation, except … Continue reading the enduring significance of distance

The growth of the Internet has emphasized functional rather than structural aspects of networking. The end-to-end principle, the concept of “the Internet,” and widespread concern about “bandwidth of connections to the Internet” push into the background ownership interfaces between networks and the geographic structure of interconnection. One result is that opportunities to innovate at the … Continue reading cities are important structures for internetworking