In-Migration Field Dynamics: A Conceptualization and Empirical Analysis

ABSTRACT

Little research has been conducted into how urban in-migration fields evolve over time. This paper examines two particular aspects that have been discussed, geographical expansion and the progressive erosion of deviations from the distance-decay rule (decrease in the relative frequency of movement with increasing distance from the urban area), but places them in a more general theoretical context, presents an approach to measurement, and provides an illustrative empirical analysis.

Empirical analysis involves the use of birthplace data for the populations of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Scotland, for the six census years 1851, 1871, 1891. 1911. 1931 and 1951. Place of birth could be any one of thirty-three Scottish counties. The findings of the analysis confirm a tendency for spatial expansion, though this was less true for Glagow and Edinburgh, and support, in a Scottish context, the hypothesis that systematic deviations from distance decay are eliminated over time.