Part 5: Cities, Networks, and Economic Geography

Human systems, trade, cities, and price formation through a geographic lens.

Textbook Part

Cities, Networks, and Economic Geography

This part brings the same modelling habits into human geography. It asks how cities organize space, how trade and transport work across distance, and how prices reveal constraint, connectivity, and power.

Start Part 5
4 core chapters Human systems Part 5
Part Route

This Part Builds From Trade Across Distance To Cities, Infrastructure, And Price Systems

The economic geography material is easiest to navigate when it is read as one widening argument. Start with distance and exchange, move into city structure and agglomeration, then treat infrastructure and markets as networked systems that reveal constraints, rents, and power.

Core Trade

Distance, Connectivity, And Arbitrage

Begin with the two core trade chapters that establish movement, frictions, and price convergence.

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Core Urban

Why Cities Organize Land And Productivity The Way They Do

Then move into rent gradients and agglomeration, where geography shapes who can be where and why.

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Depth

Infrastructure, Markets, Resources, And Transition

Use the topic-library chapters to go deeper into pipelines, trade corridors, commodity markets, and energy transition.

  • Trade and port systems
  • Pipeline and network chapters
  • Resource rents and market formation
  • Renewables and policy

The core path gives the theory. The topic-library depth shows how those same ideas behave inside real networks, regional dependencies, and market bottlenecks.

Chapter Map

EP

Infrastructure Depth

  • Alberta's Crude Oil Pipeline Network
  • NGL and Condensate Pipeline Systems
  • Natural Gas Transmission from Alberta
  • Refined Products Distribution
  • The Integrated Network
  • Crude Oil Pipelines
  • NGL and Condensate Systems
  • Natural Gas Transmission
  • Refined Products Distribution
  • The Integrated Network

These infrastructure chapters belong to the topic-libraries volume and sit outside the four-chapter core route.

Topic Library Depth

Trade and Urban Depth

  • Canadian Trade Corridors
  • Port Economics
  • Modal Split and Freight Economics
  • The Integrated Trade Network
  • Zipf's Law and the City Size Distribution
  • The Urban Economic Base
  • The Integrated Urban System

These chapters appear in topic-libraries once readers want fuller case-study and network depth.

Topic Library Depth

Resources and Markets

  • Commodity Price Formation
  • Futures Markets as Geographic Instruments
  • Price Volatility and Its Geographic Consequences
  • The Integrated Price System
  • The Hotelling Rule
  • Supply Cost Curves and Break-Even Prices
  • Royalty Regimes and Resource Rents
  • The Resource Curse
  • The Integrated Resource System

These resource and market chapters are part of the topic-libraries volume rather than the core-book build.

Topic Library Depth

Energy Transition

  • Renewable Resource Geography
  • The Economics of Clean Generation
  • Policy, Capital, and the Grid

Energy-transition case studies continue in the topic-libraries volume.