| Summary: | While many observers recognize the significance
of the city size distribution topic, the resolution of
several apparent inconsistencies in the body of literature
has not yet been achieved. This may explain why geographers,
sociologists, demographers, historians, economists, and
planners essentially tend to describe intercity patterns,
are biased toward ad hoc interpretations, and are prone
to making intuitive statements in their research.
The primary purpose of this thesis is to evolve
a more consistent methodological viewpoint within the
community size topic. Efforts are made to unite analytical
statements resting upon a common premise, to qualify,
in this light, the approaches prevalent in empirical
research, and to relate theory and empiricism by adopting
a flexible explanatory framework. The discussion necessarily
involves a critique of existing arguments and certain
extensions that, we can devise from those arguments.
While there is considerable attention directed to presenting
empirical methodologies, no original data analysis is
included.
Contending that the notions should be bound
together within a systems framework, we naturally devote
initial emphasis to the features of central place systems as outlined in the partial equilibrium theory of Christaller
(1966) and Losch (1954). We place particular stress upon
the Christaller model, the simpler and apparently more
realistic of the two approaches.
A major thrust of the paper is an integration of
several city size models, all of which display a Christallarian hierarchy. The simplest models are shown to be
special cases of a more general formulation given by
Dacey (1966). Besides, we illustrate to what degree the
characteristic property (that is, the constant proportionality factor) of the most elementary model (Beckmann, 1958)
may be considered a limit of empirical generalization.
Using the hierarchial concept, we also provide
some rather novel views on the relation between community
economic base and the distribution theme. It is felt
that this subtopic may be useful in bridging the intra-and interurban scales.
The widely expounded rank-size rule, essentially
a consequence of empirical research, is then formally
attached to the hierarchical models. At this stage our
arguments become increasingly rigorous in order to qualify
certain intuitive notions that seem accepted in the
literature. The idea of hierarchical sets is crudely
developed to complement the uni-hierarchy arguments. The
basic conclusion here is that existing city size models
hardly explain the rank-size phenomenon butt that the two
notions cannot be considered totally incompatible. Empirical research methodologies are stressed as
another fundamental subtopic. We suggest certain avenues
along which empirical efforts must be strengthened before
either (i) rigorous inductive generalizations or (ii) firm
theory substantiation become more realizable. Particular
attention is given to delimitation of the study area
(and, therefore to the scale problem), the comparison of
frequency curves, and the value of inferences we can
make using rather crude statistical tools. At this stage
we introduce other skew distributions that are genetically
similar to the rank-size curve. Furthermore, the stochastic
models that seemingly account for these distributions are
taken to complement the deterministic theory mentioned
above. Here we support the central place argument as the
only existing source of models that explicate those factors
inducing spatial differentiation of economic activities
and, as a consequence, urban populations.
Finally, we pursue the idea of growth within the
interurban structure. At this time, however, discussion
is certainly exploratory and so is limited to developing
notions concerning the interrelations of growth variables
(population, income, etc.) and hierarchal structure in the
broadest sense. Within this analytic framework we can
suggest only the most general factors that may be associated
with low degrees of primacy (a quality of interurban structure
that we view as a deviation from a characteristic
skew distribution). This particular subtopic promises to be an exciting research theme in its own right as investigators
move from equilibrium to dynamic modelling. === Arts, Faculty of === Geography, Department of === Graduate
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