How much does size matter?

A hope of this blog is that small American cities have a future, and it will brighten over the next quarter century the way large cities' futures have brightened over the last quarter century.

Sustainable Cities has a recent post on the question of how much size matters--vs networks--for a city's success. It's spurred by this post, which argues that regional and global economic connections matter much more than a city's girth. (Though they're not saying that size doesn't matter at all.)

I largely agree with the argument, and personally I wouldn't have considered leaving a large city before the internets gave me a lifeline for work and culture. But the caveats are still important. Size still matters for a lot of things, e.g. if you want a major sports team, a garment district, an aquarium, or a world-class museum, and there are certainly economies of scale of services and infrastructure. However many of these economies of scale become achievable at relatively small sizes (e.g. basic services like sanitation, fire, police) and simply via density (i.e. becomes cheaper to maintain less infrastructure per capita.)

A side note, these economies of scale can inversely become death spirals for depopulating cities trying to maintain their existing services and infrastructure on a shrinking tax base.

More reading, point:
http://www.newgeography.com/content/001759-cities-size-does-not-matter-much-anymore

Counter-point:
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_living_city/P1/

A little tangential, but still interesting on cities vs broader regions:
http://burghdiaspora.blogspot.com/2010/09/divided-michigan.html