Sequential city growth： Theory and evidence from the US

City growth patterns are attracting more attention in urban geography studies. This paper examines how cities develop and grow in the upper tail of size distribution in a large-scale economy based on a theoretical model under new economic geography framework and the empirical evidence from the US. The results show that cities grow in a sequential pattern. Cities with the best economic conditions are the first to grow fastest until they reach a critical size, then their growth rates slow down and the smaller cities farther down in the urban hierarchy become the fastest-growing ones in sequence. This paper also reveals three related features of urban system. First, the city size distribution evolves from low-level balanced to primate and finally high-level balanced pattern in an inverted U-shaped path. Second, there exist persistent discontinuities, or gaps, between city size classes. Third, city size in the upper tail exhibits conditional convergence characteristics. This paper could not only contribute to enhancing the understanding of urbanization process and city size distribution dynamics, but also be widely used in making effective policies and scientific urban planning.

Influence of haze pollution on water-soluble chemical species in PM2.5 and size-resolved particles at an urban site during fall

To investigate the influence of haze on the chemical composition and formation processes of ambient aerosol particles,PM_（2.5） and size-segregated aerosol particles were collected daily during fall at an urban site of Gwangju,Korea.During the study period,the total concentration of secondary ionic species（SIS） contributed an average of 43.9% to the PM_（2.5） ,whereas the contribution of SIS to the PM_（2.5） during the haze period was 62.3%.The NO_3 and SO^（2-）_4 concentrations in PM_（2.5） during the haze period were highly elevated,being 13.4 and 5.0 times higher than those during non-haze period,respectively.The PM,NO^-_3,SO^（2-）_4,oxalate,water-soluble organic carbon（WSOC）,and humic-like substances（HULIS） had tri-modal size distributions peaks at 0.32,1.0,and 5.2 μm during the non-haze and haze periods.However,during the non-haze period they exhibited dominant size distributions at the condensation mode peaking at 0.32 μm,while on October 21 when the heaviest haze event occurred,they had predominant droplet mode size distributions peaking at 1.00 μm.Moreover,strong correlations of WSOC and HULIS with SO^（2-）_4,oxalate,and K＋at particle sizes of 〈 1.8 μm indicate that secondary processes and emissions from biomass burning could be responsible for WSOC and HULIS formations.It was found that the factors affecting haze formation could be the local stable synoptic conditions,including the weak surface winds and high surface pressures,the long-range transportation of haze from eastern China and upwind regions of the Korean peninsula,as well as the locally emitted and produced aerosol particles.