Accessibility and urban-growth rates - evidence for the irish urban system

Abstract

Urban growth is a complicated process and any quantitative analysis is unlikely to replicate growth rates very well. This paper explores one particular relationship in the context of Irish urban centres, that between growth rates and accessibility to larger centres. That this is an important relationship is noted in a recent NESC study (O'Farrell, 1979). There it is suggested that with increased urbanisation "location relative to the range of external economies available in metropolitan centres becomes more important" (O'Farrell, 1979, p. 57) as a determinant of urban growth.