Resumen de Agglomeration of Spatial Clubs

Oded Hochman

• The literature on agglomeration has focused largely on direct attraction effects, that is, entities, usually firms, drawn to one another to enhance the output of their activity. In this paper we investigate by using an analytical model with general functions, the agglomeration of clubs arising from an indirect effect, the mutual attraction between clubs and population which lead both housing and clubs to joint agglomerations. We show that when the population is uniformly distributed, there is no economic agglomeration of clubs, however, in a first best allocation of spatial clubs, the population is never distributed uniformly over space. To minimize costs, clubs of different types along with population agglomerate in and around centers. We specify conditions for which the case of a monocentric city, an agglomeration of all club types to a single point, is a unique solution. We also investigate a case of multiple centers solution and show that in addition to the agglomeration of some club types in the center of a complex, the rest of the club types cluster in subcenters which gravitate around the center.