Citation

Hernando A, Hernando R, Plastino A, Zambrano E. J. R. Soc. Interface 2015; 12(102): e20141185.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Royal Society)

DOI

10.1098/rsif.2014.1185

PMID

25551139

PMCID

PMC4277112

Abstract

A quantitative understanding of cities' demographic dynamics is becoming a potentially useful tool for planning sustainable growth. The concomitant theory should reveal details of the cities' past and also of its interaction with nearby urban conglomerates for providing a reasonably complete picture. Using the exhaustive database of the Census Bureau in a time window of 170 years, we exhibit here empirical evidence for time and space correlations in the demographic dynamics of US counties, with a characteristic memory time of 25 years and typical distances of interaction of 200 km. These correlations are much larger than those observed in a European country (Spain), indicating more coherent evolution in US cities. We also measure the resilience of US cities to historical events, finding a demographical post-traumatic amnesia after wars (such as the American Civil War) or economic crisis (such as the 1929 Stock Market Crash).

Language: en