from introduction:

The role of cities in economic development has occupied a prominent place in many important works of economic theory of the 18th and 19th century. This essay intends to give a – however selective – survey of the contributions of some of the most prominent authors and characterizes their different approaches to the subject, with some reflections on the place of the aspect of distribution of economic activity between city and country in the history of economic thought. In the spirit of the scholarly work of Jürgen Backhaus, it calls back into memory the writings of the authors of the German Historical School who discussed the topic of Stadt und Land in a broad socio-economic context. In the 20th century, the prevailing current of economic thinking has lost sight of this traditional subject of economics. Recent contributions which follow the socio-economic approach deal with the new dimensions of the old question in the globalized world economy.