IDENTIFICATION OF URBAN SPACES WITH CHARACTERISTICS OF SUBCENTERS IN INTERMEDIATE CITIES

Abstract

All cities originally functioned from a central place where economic, social, political activities, among others, called the center. This city model was considered monocentric. In this context, the first theoretical models were born, during the first half of the 20th century, which explained the growth of North American cities, based on a central place where economic activities they performed and some services were provided. Thus, the most central locations had higher land value, but lower transportation costs.
With the increase in population, cities have grown in territorial extension and economic activities have been decentralized, taking advantage of the urban economies that generate the advantages of agglomeration and location, giving rise to the formation of new urban centers (subcenters) that compete with the center traditional, thus appearing polycentricity in the cities.
In recent decades, some statistical methods have been developed that allow identifying urban subcenters based on employment and land value, the subject of this article, the product of research developed in the city of Culiacán Rosales, Sinaloa, Mexico.