Hierarchy and concentration in the American urban system of technological advance

Abstract

This paper investigates aspects of the urban hierarchy and concentration of patent sub‐categories in United States metropolitan areas by estimating Zipf, Gini and Moran's I coefficients. Results do not support a power law depiction of the location of disaggregate patenting in the entire metropolitan system. The most concentrated and hierarchical patent technologies are computer hardware and software, computer peripherals, information storage, communications, surgery and medical instruments, nuclear and x‐rays, semiconductor devices, optics and organic compounds. Technologies are cross‐classified, which reveals aspects of variety in locational patterns and offers clues into systems of knowledge exchange in urban‐based technological advance. Resumen Este artículo investiga los aspectos de la jerarquía urbana y la concentración de subcategorías de patentes en áreas metropolitanas de los Estados Unidos, mediante la estimación de los coeficientes de Zipf, Gini, y la I de Moran. Los resultados no siguen una ley de potencias para la localización de patentes desagregadas en la totalidad del sistema metropolitano. Las tecnologías de patentes más concentradas y jerárquicas son las de hardware y software, periféricos informáticos, almacenamiento de información, comunicaciones, cirugía e instrumentos médicos, radiología (rayos X, nuclear), dispositivos semiconductores, óptica y compuestos orgánicos. Las tecnologías muestran una clasificación transversal, que revela aspectos de diversidad en los patrones de localización y ofrece indicios sobre los sistemas de intercambio de conocimientos en el avance tecnológico de carácter urbano.

Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions

“…Using patent data, some studies have conducted country-level analyses to reveal the composition and spatial location of technologies, mostly in U.S. and Europe [17,20,21], but there have not been many efforts deploying patent data to deconstruct technological composition within the city-region. Patent filing in China has grown rapidly over the past years since the pursuit of innovation strategy.…”

Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Urban Systems in China during Rapid Urbanization

“…The spatial and temporal evolution of urban hierarchy has drawn considerable scholarly interests [1][2][3] and societal concerns [4][5][6]. In China, labor and capital have been largely migrating to coastal metropolitan areas since the 1990s [7][8][9], which has been contributing to serious urban problems, such as traffic congestion, environment pollution and resource limitation, alongside threatening social stability and sustainable development [10,11].…”