An ϵ-distance-uniform graph is one with a critical distance d such that from every vertex, all but at most an ϵ-fraction of the remaining vertices are at distance exactly d. Motivated by the theory of network creation games, Alon, Demaine, Hajiaghayi, and Leighton made the follow- ing conjecture of independent interest: that every ϵ-distance-uniform graph (and, in fact, a broader class of ϵ-distance-almost-uniform graphs) has critical distance at most logarithmic in the number of vertices n. We disprove this conjecture and characterize the asymptotics of this extremal prob- lem. Speci-cally, for 1/n ≤ ϵ ≤ 1 /log n , we construct ϵ-distance-uniform graphs with critical distance 2ω(log n/log ϵ-1). We also prove an upper bound on the critical distance of the form 2O(log n/log ϵ-1) for all ϵ and n. Our lower bound construction introduces a novel method inspired by the Tower of Hanoi puzzle and may itself be of independent interest.

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