1. Urban Economic Geography
Central Place Theory
Urban Land Use/Development/Downtowns Redevelopment
World Cities Hypothesis & Network

2. CENTRAL PLACE THEORY

3. What is it?
A basic theory describing size distribution of urban locations based upon these locations providing goods and services

4. Who is Christaller?

5. Who is Christaller?
Walter Christaller, a German geographer, originally proposed the Central Place Theory (CPT) in 1933 (trans. 1966). Christaller was studying the urban settlements in Southern Germany and advanced this theory as a means of understanding how urban settlements evolve and are spaced out in relation to each other.

6. Terms
Hinterland – Area where a city is the dominant producer of a particular good or service
Field of Influence – Any location where a city has influence
Centrality – Amount of draw to a particular place

7. Terms
Consumer Range – Distance a consumer will travel for a particular good or service
Threshold – Minimum population needed to keep a business in operation
Hierarchy of market centers - Settlements range in size from large cities - with many services to smaller villages and towns with some services, to small hamlets - which offer few services.

8. Order of Goods High Order High Price Low Frequency of Purchase
High Threshold
Large Consumer Range
Low Order
Low Price
High Frequency of Purchase
Low Threshold
Small Consumer Range

9. Order of Places
The higher order of goods offered the higher order of the place
Higher order places are more widely spread out
Hierarchy development

10. Assumptions
1. There is an unbounded uniform plain on which there is equal ease of transport in all directions. Transport costs are proportional to distance and there is only one type of transport.

11. Assumptions
2. Population is evenly distributed over the plain.

12. Assumptions
3. Central places (settlements) are located on the plain to provide goods, services, and administrative functions to their hinterlands. Examples of these are hardware shops (goods), dry cleaners (services), and town planning departments (administrative).

13. Assumptions
4. Consumers minimize the distance to be travelled.

14. Assumptions
5. The suppliers of these functions act as economic [agents]; that is, they attempt to maximize their profits by locating on the plain to obtain the largest possible market. Since people visit the nearest centre, suppliers will locate as far away from one another as possible so as to maximize their market areas.

15. Assumptions
6. It is assumed that these higher order centres supply certain functions (higher order functions) which are not offered by lower order centres. They also provide all the functions (lower order functions) that are provided in lower order centres.[i.e., you can still buy bread and milk in Denver, but international airports do not exist in smaller towns and cities, like Parker.]

16. Assumptions
7. All consumers have the same income and the same demand for goods and services.

17. Relax Assumptions:
1. Population income variation--wealthy vs. non-wealthy areas, wealthy areas do not usually need as large of a threshold
2. Variation in transport surfaces
3. Consumer Behaviour/Individual Preferences
4. Profits

18. Shape of Hinterlands
The model in CPT is explained using geometric shapes, such as hexagons and triangles

19. Unmet demand for same good or service19 R T M ?
Unmet demand for same good or service R T M R T M R T M

21. Any contemporary real world examples of the patterns seen in CPT?
Is Central Place Theory applicable in the real world or is it just a theory?
Any contemporary real world examples of the patterns seen in CPT?
Can you think of examples from the past in Europe and from the United States today in which the range is larger than the threshold yet businesses thrive and market towns temporarily come alive? 1. itinerant merchants in medieval Europe who would sell their wares in a different town each day or two to "collect" sufficient "ranges" to meet or, hopefully, exceed their "threshold" (market) to keep their business going
2. in the US, multi-million dollar businesses have insufficient thresholds because the range for their products are too small; hence, professional athletic teams and popular entertainers with their high income demands travel throughout the country collecting "ranges." Already in the 19th century, catalog companies, like Sears, were already "annihilating" space, as does the internet now.
There are, however, some near perfect examples of Christaller’s theory to be found in the Canadian prairies and the Netherlands. Also Iowa and Wisconsin.

22. A GENERAL GRAPH CONCERNING FUNCTIONS !

23. Why doesn’t this always work?
Large areas of flat land rarely exist
Transport has changed since his day
People/wealth are not evenly distributed
Folks don’t always choose the central place!
Purchasing power/needs not all the same
Governments have control over location of industry/towns
Perfect competition = unreal
Places don’t stay the same forever
Does not fit industrial areas

24. Market, - city, town, village, hamlet
Market area / hinterland

25. Consumers near center obtain services from local establishments.
The closer to the periphery the greater the % of customers who will chose to obtain services from other nodes (cities). People are equally likely to use the service, or go elsewhere.

26. Fast Food McDonald’s
According to your text book McDonald’s has a range of 3 miles.
The typical threshold is 10,000 people.

27. Movie Theaters

28. Movie Theaters: Range?
Range - using scale and throwing out B (wildlife) 8-10 miles

29. Movie Theaters: Threshold - about 500 a night or 150,000

30. Ikea

31. Ikea

32. Ikea

33. Ikea

34. Ikea - Range?
About 50 miles

35. Ikea - Threshold?
About 2 million people