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Primacy momentum. In this time, however, an essen- tial feature of Jefferson’s contentions was lost, CHRISTOF PARNREITER namely the notion that urban primacy is University of Hamburg, Germany “good.” Instead, the idea of poor countries’ overurbanization became popular, and with The term and concept of urban primacy it the belief that primate cities are barri- were introduced by US geographer Mark ers to national development. Hoselitz, for Jefferson in the late 1930s. Interested in cities, example, in his famous distinction between their size and distribution, he compared generative and parasitic cities claimed that the population size of the largest with that primate cities’ growth was at the expense of the second largest city in 51 countries, of all other cities, for which reason “a series which he considered to be the leading and of at least temporary parasitic influences culturally most advanced. He found that in [are] exerted by the primate city” (1955, 28 cases the largest city had more than twice 294). The notion that the primate city was the population than the second largest city, in all respects – population, infrastructure, while in 18 countries the largest city was economy – too large in relation to all other more than three times as large as the second. cities of a country was further popularized by For Jefferson (1939, 227, 231), this “constancy a then well-accepted United Nations report of recurrence … gives this relation the status on urbanization in Asia, which stated that of law. … Acountry’sleadingcityisalways the “primate or great city … tend[s] to be disproportionately large and exceptionally parasitic in relation to the remainder of expressive of national capacity and feeling.” the national economy” (Hauser 1957, 34). Yet, beyond the descriptive definition – a pri- Primacy,thus,becamecloselyrelatedto“un- mate city is at least twice as large as the second derdevelopment” – as its consequence (e.g., largest city – Jefferson (1939, 227) suggested resulting from colonialism), but increasingly that primacy was a sign as well as a result of also as one of its reasons. According to this development: “All over the world it is the Law view, an unbalanced urban network hinders of the Capitals that the largest city shall be the diffusion of economic progress, resulting supereminent, and not merely in size, but in in overall lower levels of development and national influence.” According to Jefferson polarization. (1939, 226), this close relationship between Yet, such views were soon challenged. On size and grandeur was universal – London is the one hand, many studies rejected Zipf ’s the United Kingdom’s primate city because law, finding that the log-normal city-size “there fame and fortune are found,” while distribution of cities is actually not the norm. Mexico City is the “culmination of national On the other hand, doubts were raised as life.” regards the assumed association of primacy Though, soon after Jefferson’s publication, and underdevelopment. Brian Berry (1961, Zipf’s (1941) work on city size in the USA 587) was one of the first to contend that there suggested that leading nations might have a are “no relationships between type of city balanced urban system, it took nearly two size distribution and either relative economic decades before research on primacy gained development or the degree of urbanization The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Edited by Anthony Orum. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0246 2 PRIMACY of countries.” Other studies either supported was also key in introducing the concept this finding (e.g., Mehta 1964), found only a of overurbanization (Davis and Golden weak negative statistical association between 1954). Such coincidences are not accidental: per capita income and primacy (Linsky 1965), where, if not in the rapidly growing cities or observed an inverted U-shaped curvilin- ofthe“ThirdWorld,”shouldoneenvisage ear relationship, according to which primacy overpopulation? And while modernization is functional for the development process, theory promised development as the answer whiletheurbansystemoffullydeveloped to the general overpopulation “problem,” economies is expected to take a log-normal achieving a log-normal distribution of urban form (El-Shakhs 1972). settlements was thought to be the solution These doubts did, however, little harm to tothespatialcorrelateofthe“problem,”the thepopularityoftheassertionthatprimacyis primate city, which ever more often became adverse to economic growth. A good example a megacity. An increasing research emphasis for this contradiction between claims and was thus laid on intermediate cities and on empirical support is Berry (1964), who, only policies to stimulate their growth (Hardoy three years after finding no relationships and Satterthwaite 1986). between primacy and economic development A third driver of the primacy discourse was and without presenting new evidence, links the quantitative revolution. With geography nonprimate urban systems in rank-size form being interpreted as spatial science, the search to normal, “healthy” development processes. for laws, rules, or at least regularities of social Until today, this is a commonsensical truism “things” (such as cities) “in” space became the in the “Third World” cities literature. common task. The rank-size rule, tested with Thepervasivenessofthisdiscoursestems, ever-increasing amounts of data and increas- first, from developmentalism and mod- ingly sophisticated statistical methods, fitted ernization theory, which successfully had this program perfectly, though the results of established the West/North and, in partic- these quantitative endeavors remained incon- ular, the USA as role models. Pursuing the clusive. prescribed economic and political strate- In the 1970s and 1980s, the influence of gies would lead, it was claimed, to growth, Marxism and world-systems analysis on welfare, and to regional convergence and a urbanstudiesrevivedthedebateonprimacy. balanced urban system. Second, and related, Frank (1969), though not referring explic- the popularity of the “primacy is equal to itly to the primacy debate, suggested that underdevelopment” discourse is attached to peripheral areas will develop very dominant the overpopulation alarmism which emerged cities which monopolize external relations in the 1940s. Decolonialization, mortality in order to funnel resources from rural reduction, and hence population growth and urban hinterlands to the foreign cen- in the recent or soon independent states ters. Primacy was, thus, seen as a result of and growing awareness of this demographic dependent urbanization which does not change nourished “the white man’s” fear of allow for the development of or breaks an losing control and becoming a minority. The already existing “urban network of functional temporal parallelism of the overurbanization interdependences” (Castells 1977, 48). Yet, and the overpopulation alarmism is striking, despite promising beginnings (e.g., Tim- and so are personal intersections. Kingsley berlake 1985), critical research on urban Davis, for example, one of the “fathers” of primacy did not produce new insights. Smith the model of the demographic transition, (1985, 89) even contended that scholars PRIMACY 3 Table 1 Demographic primacy, Mexico City, 1980–2010 (based on Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía 2016; World Bank 2016) 1980 1990 2000 2010 Primacy index 8.25.25.04.5 Mexico City’s share in the country’s total population (percent) 18.818.318.017.0 Mexico City’s share in the country’s urban population (percent) 28.325.624.021.8 Primacy index is defined as the relation of Mexico City’s population to the second largest city’s population. Mexico City means the whole urban agglomeration (Zona Metropoliana de la Ciudad de México). Table 2 Functional primacy, Mexico City, 1998–2014 (based on Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía 2016; World Bank 2016) 1998 2004 2009 2014 Mexico City’s share in the country’s manufacturing value added (percent) 22.717.316.913.6 Mexico City’s share in the country’s financial and insurance services value 87.188.293.181.6 added (percent) interested in dependency and modernization lie in the same state. In order to accomplish theorists differed little, agreeing on primacy’s the funneling of resources of the Spanish “ugly” nature as well as on accounts of its viceroyalty to Spain, and to bridge the emerg- emergence, though none of the established ing world economy of the Mediterranean explanations was convincing. While the to Asia, colonial Mexico City was part of idea that primacy resulted from colonialism several overlapping urban systems. It con- fittedAsianbutnotLatinAmericancases nected cities in the Spanish viceroyalty via well, the export dependency thesis could not Veracruz and Seville to Madrid, and it linked explain why in Latin America primacy grew the Spanish capital via Manila to Shanghai. In particularly in the time of import substitut- other cases, large countries (e.g., India) might ing industrialization. Nevertheless, neither have (had) more than one urban system. Marxist nor world-systems analysis scholars However, the call to seriously consider what could establish an alternative theoretical constitutes an urban system, and at which explication. scale, before making statements about the There is, however, one critical contribution origins and effects of primacy, went by and of world-systems analysis to the study of primacy.
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