* Situation and Site
* Situation: position relative to travel routes, farmlands, manufacturing complexes, towns, cities (near & distant surroundings); subject to change: Chicago, Shenzhen (favorable), “Rust Belt” (unfavorable)
* Site: physical qualities of its place; valley, coastal plain, plateau, island,… Paris (first established on the Seine River), Singapore (separation from Malaysia)
* Central Places
* All urban centers have a certain economic reach (range) and centrality
* Central Place Theory
* Walter Christaller (1933); wanted to show how & where urban areas would be functionally & spatially distributed
* Assumptions: flat area, no barriers, even soil fertility, even distribution of pop. and purchasing power, uniform trans. network, constant range of sale
* Central goods and services = provided only at a central place, or city (available to consumers in a surrounding region)
* Threshold – min. market needed to keep a central place in business
* John Borchert (1967): analyzed urbanization in North America (4 epochs); based on impact of transportation & communication
* 1) Sail-Wagon Epoch (1790-1830)
* 2) Iron Horse Epoch (1830-70); steam-powered locomotive
* 3) Steel-Rail Epoch (1870-1920); full impact of Ind. Rev., hinterlands expand
* 4) Auto-Air-Amenity Epoch (1920-70); gas-powered internal combustion engine
* 5) High Technology Epoch? (1970-); service & information
* Rank-Size Rule
* George Zipf (1949); occurs when a country doesn’t have a dominant primate city (most LDCs have a high degree of primacy)
* Population of a city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank; Pn=P1/n (P1=pop. of largest city, n = rank of city)
* Ex) Largest city [1] = 12 mil., 2nd city = 6 mil., 3rd city = 4 mil., 4th city = 3 mil…
Binary Distribution – when a country has two large cities of similar size; rank-size rule may apply...