Scaling laws, economic growth, education and crime: Evidence from Brazil

Abstract

This paper investigates the universality and robustness of scaling laws for urban systems using Brazil as a case study. We report on a quantitative analysis of relationships between the population size and other urban metrics, by using data from Brazilian cities. Bearing in mind that the Brazilian urban system has its own peculiarities, scaling relations could help to foresee many of the properties that a city is expected to display as it gains or loses population. For this reason, we describe the behavior of the b exponents in order to show the consequences of population size on a variety of urban patterns as well as the driving mechanism involved in all these social phenomena. The realization that, concerning Brazil, most urban indicators scale with city size very importantly, implying increases in gross domestic product, crime, education, wage is crucial to set reasonable goals for local policy.