Promotional banner showing LED lamps: tubes, bulbs and a compact LED, with orange background and 'LED LAMPS All Shapes and Sizes' text on the left (Naturaled branding).

Construction + Economy

Zipf’s Law: One of the Great Curiosities in Urban Research

Craig DiLouie June 5, 2010

From The New York Times:

The law claims that the number of people in a city is inversely proportional to the city’s rank among all cities. In other words, the biggest city is about twice the size of the second biggest city, three times the size of the third biggest city, and so forth …

Get the full story here.

author avatar
Craig DiLouie
See Full Bio

You Might also Like

Construction + Economy, Lighting Industry

AI Infrastructure Boom Strains PCB Materials Supply Chain

Construction + Economy, Legislation + Regulation

FAA Earmarks $1.35 Billion To Airport Infrastructure Projects

Interior showroom with orange suspended linear lights, glass walls, and a reflective column; large white and yellow text promoting 'Urban Prebuilt Series' with a subtitle 'Ready-to-install linear lighting'.
Advertisement for LED lamps showing a filament bulb, a tube light, and a spotlight against an orange circle on a black background with the text 'LED LAMPS All Shapes and Sizes' and the Naturaled logo.

Events

IES Street & Area Lighting Conference

Phoenix, AZ

November 8-11, 2026

Light Expo London

London, UK

November 18 - 19, 2026

Canada Light Expo 2026

Toronto, Canada

November 18-19, 2026

Lightovation: Dallas International Lighting Show

Dallas, TX

January 6-9, 2027

Light + Intelligent Building North America (replaced LightFair)

Las Vegas, NV

March 15-18, 2027

Click For More
Event banner for Light+ Intelligent Building North America with dates March 15–18, 2027 in Las Vegas; includes a yellow 'Register Today' button and schedule details.
Dallas Market Center ArcLight Summit banner: Call for Speakers, June 22–23, 2027 — Apply Now (logo with colorful arc.”] ,

Archives

Categories

About

Launched in 2001, LightNOW covers the rapidly changing lighting world for lighting people. Check-in daily to see new posts by Editor David Shiller, Craig DiLouie, and other experts in the lighting field including consultants and lighting designers. Posts include news items to keep you up to date, short opinion pieces to invite you to consider another point of view, new products every Monday, and links to new research and tools to help you design with light. Also be sure to subscribe to the LightNOW newsletter (free), which is published every two weeks as a digest of articles on the site. We always welcome your feedback, so feel free to comment on any of the stories that appear here at LightNOW. If you are a manufacturer, LightNOW offers a low-cost ad vehicle to reach thousands of specifiers, contractors, reps, distributors, consultants, owners, and other stakeholders in the sales channel. For advertising inquiries, contact Suelynn Shiller. Thank you for visiting, and we hope you find LightNOW useful for your career in lighting

Light Now Logo

Lighting Solution Development
7889 River Hill Lane, Alexandria, PA 16611-2604

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN ALL ARTICLES PUBLISHED ON WWW.LIGHTNOWBLOG.COM HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE. DAMAGES ARISING FROM ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR DAMAGES AS A RESULT OF THE USE OR MISUSE OF THE DATA OR INFORMATION CONTAINED AT WWW.LIGHTNOWBLOG.COM ARE NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LIGHTING SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT, INTER.LIGHT, INC., ZING COMMUNICATIONS, INC., OR THEIR EMPLOYEES. ALL INFORMATION CONTAINED AT WWW.LIGHTNOWBLOG.COM IS PUBLISHED FOR PROFESSIONALS SEEKING INFORMATION ABOUT THE SUBJECTS CONTAINED THEREIN. IT IS NOT THE INTENT OF WWW.LIGHTNOWBLOG.COM TO PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES SUCH AS DESIGN, ENGINEERING, OR CONSULTING. IF THESE SERVICES ARE SOUGHT, THEY SHOULD BE RENDERED BY PROPERLY TRAINED, REGISTERED, REGULATED AND INSURED PROFESSIONALS.

© Copyright 2026 LightNOW