Week 4

Endogenous growth in a city might simply equate to the portion of the city’s economy that is ‘service.”  Endogenous growth essentially applies to all of the economic activity that is generated within and by the city itself, for consumption in the city, whereas exogenous growth pertains to capital moving into the city from outside.  Exogenous growth is another name for external trade.  Endogenous growth encompasses the service economy and retail economy that support the residence of thousands of people in an urban environment.  But if exogenous factors ceased, the endogenous economy would crumble.

Centripetal growth tendencies are natural enough, and have been evidenced throughout the course of human history by people convening at central or convenient locations for the transaction of business. Centrifugal growth is a result of continued centripetal growth, in that space is limited capital.  In the modern world activities that have typically been profitably located in the core are moving to the outskirts of cities.  Firms are getting more efficient about what kinds of business needs to be conducted downtown, and what can be relegated to the fringe.  Cities are transitioning into megaregions, and we should try to understand these regions writ large as centripetal forces.