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The new economic geography (NEG) has become a mainstay of regional science in the last two decades, as signified by the awarding of Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize. Yet, most American regional scientists and urban/regional economists do not use NEG in determining regional growth patterns. Instead, they rely on factors such as natural amenity migration, whose roots lie back to the work of Philip Graves in the mid 1970s. Conversely, two of the world's leading economic geographers – Allen Scott and Michael Storper – have strongly argued that job availability not household amenities have determined US regional dynamics. Given the disparity of views over the largest developed economy in the world, we hold a competition to determine which of these leading contenders accurately predict US interregional growth dynamics over the last 40–60 years. The runaway winner of the duel is natural amenity led growth with the crown going to Graves. Implications are drawn for both empirical research and EU economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sprawl has evolved into an exceptionally complex public policy problem in the United States over the course of recent decades. One factor that has made it particularly difficult to deal with is its relationship to the fragmented structure of the American system of land use governance. Acting on behalf of their residents, local governments enact land use regulations to secure lifestyle preferences for low density, suburban living environments while at the same time ensuring a high quality of public service provision. This article examines the effect of this process on metropolitan spatial structure through a series of econometric models designed to test the following hypothesis: that fragmentation promotes sprawl by increasing the proportion of growth that occurs at the unincorporated urban fringe. The estimation results reveal substantive evidence that municipal fragmentation and several related factors - including special districts, infrastructure investments, and white flight processes - have a significant and enduring effect on the growth of outlying areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]