Second-Rank City Dynamics: Theoretical Interpretations Behind Their Growth Potentials

The Missing Link Between Agglomeration Economies and Urban Dynamics: Theme of the Special Issue Second-rank cities are back on the academic scene, capturing the interest of scholars with their unexpected recent performance with respect to first-rank cities.In the data on average urban GDP growth in 139 European cities since 1996, the relatively strong position of large cities (over 1.5 million inhabitants) in national growth coincides with periods of fastest expansion, while at times of slowdown second-rank cities prevail (Camagni et al., 2014a).Especially in the recent period of economic downturn, second-rank cities have recorded annual GDP growth rates that are much less negative than those of capital cities; and in some European countries, like Austria and Germany, all cities have outperformed their capitals (Parkinson et al., 2014).This trend is not confined to Europe alone.In the USA, between 1969 and 2007, the largest eight Metropolitan Statisti-cal Areas (now on MSAs) grew by only one-third of the rate of the other three smaller MSA categories.Moreover, after 1990, the performance of the large MSAs was only slightly better, since their growth rates were still only about one-half of the average rates for the three smaller MSA size categories.The Big MSAs' growth rate barely exceeded those of nonmetropolitan areas: indeed, they even trailed the average growth rate of non-metropolitan areas (Partridge, 2010).This is not the first time that the dynamics of second-rank cities have captured the interest of scholars; over time, different interpretations have been put forward of their relatively good performance.All of them are interesting, but none of them is fully convincing because they are linked more to cyclical than structural factors.During the 1980s, the fast growth of medium-sized cities in developing countries was explained as the conse-