Municipal Investment Requirements in a Growing Agglomeration.

The present paper develops a general metropolitan agglomeration prototype and examines its consequences for intra-agglomeration municipal investment. The division of total investment into "social" and "economic" components helps considerably to clarify the general analysis. The prototype is then examined in the light of empirical evidence from the Belgian province of East Flanders. Finally, it is suggested that the results of the present analysis may help to explain and harmonize some of the contradictory evidence which has arisen out of studies of American urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]