Urban Geography Reading 03
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Central Place Theory
Geographers use certain patterns of geographic thought to bring order to the urban landscape. These concepts are; range, threshold, hinterlands, function, and Urban Hierarchy. These concepts were developed based on the theories of a German geographer named Walter Christaller. His ideas were called Central Place Theory. This reading will explore some of ideas behind Central Place Theory and how the ideas that grew from Central Place Theory brings order to the urban landscape.
Mr. Christaller wanted to learn more about why cities were placed on the landscape where they were. So, he set up a theoretical model of the landscape (remember Thuen). His landscape was perfectly flat. Products and people were evenly placed across the landscape. Everybody had the same income (guess he never heard of pro sports). Distances to places became important because in Christaller's world, everybody could travel in a straight line in any direction they wanted. Finally, Christaller said that every person would travel to the closest place that would supply the product that they wanted.
Under his theories, Christaller believed that every town's business activities would draw on the surrounding population that lived closest to those activities. If a person lived closer to another city, they would shop in that other city. If there was no city to help that person, a city would "pop up" to service the people living in that area. Each and every single Central Place is created to serve the land around it.
These theories lead to a couple of new concepts, Range, Threshold, Hinterlands, Function, and Urban Hierarchy. The next few paragraphs will explain each term.
Range is the how far you will go to obtain a good or service. There are two types of Range; Low Range and High Range. Low range goods are goods you will not travel to far to purchase, for example, a carton of milk. High range goods are goods you will travel great distances to purchase, like going to a concert or attending a pro sports event.
Threshold is the number of people that live in a region in order for a business to have enough customers to show a profit. This is another way of saying "market". There are two types of Threshold; High Threshold and Low Threshold. Threshold assumes some business activities will be used more often than others. Grocery stores are used almost daily by most people. These businesses are called Low Threshold businesses. Pro sports events are not used very often by most people and therefore are considered to be High Threshold business. Low threshold businesses, like Grocery stores, can be located in communities with very low populations because they are used more often. High Threshold businesses, like pro sports teams, need to be located in large, urban centers because they are used so infrequently by most people.
Hinterland is the region or area that is serviced by a community or business. The way threshold explains the number of people in a market region, hinterlands explains it in geographic terms. Some geographers say that the hinterland is the region that a good or service draws people from. Either way you look at it, hinterland explains markets in geographic terms (land size).
Function is the good or service that a business or community provides its hinterland.
From the terms Range, Threshold, Hinterland, and Function urban geographers were able to develop a way of grouping cities by how they provided goods or services to their hinterlands. This system of grouping is called Urban Hierarchy. Urban Hierarchy assumes that cities can be grouped by the functions (services) they provide. Geographers divided these groupings into the following categories; Hamlet, Village, Town, City, and Primate City.
A Hamlet is any place with less than 500 people and a good or service is provided for them. Many times a hamlet is nothing more than a crossroads store and one or two homes near the store. Many of us have seen this type of settlement while driving to Duluth or the Twin Cities.
A Village is a small settlement usually found in a rural setting. Some geographers define villages as having between 500 and 2,500 people. In most parts of the world, a village is not considered to be large enough to be called an urban area. These villages usually are involved in only one economic activity like fishing, mining, or farming. Villages provide basic goods and services for the inhabitants of the village and for people in a small hinterland around the village. Villages are often centers of local government. Villages provide more services than a hamlet can offer, but not as much as a town.
A town is an urban settlement generally larger, and with greater variety of functions and services, than a village, but smaller, and with fewer services than a city. Some geographers further define a town as having 2,500 to 20,000 residents. Towns usually have local self government, and they may grow around specialized economic activities, such as mining or railroading. In some parts of the United States, a town or township is also a subdivision of a county.
A City offers more services than a town. Cities have more than 20,000 people and can have upwards of a million people. Cities are often the regional center of government and trade. The previous readings in this series have covered some of the other characteristics of cities.
A Primate City is a city that is at least twice as large as any other city in the country that it serves. This city often is the place that people from other countries think about when they think of the Primate City's country. For example, when many Americans think of France, they think of Paris. Many foreigners think of New York when they think of the United States. By definition, most countries have only one Primate City.
I hope you have guessed by now that every higher order Central Place has all of the functions and services of the lower Central Place plus a few more.
Central Place Theory has it's problems, towns are not evenly distributed over the landscape, because resources are not evenly distributed. Many people do not behave in such a way that they will minimize their costs.
However, Central Place Theory does explain why there are fewer and larger communities spread out far apart. Specialized services are not often found in smaller communities unless that community is wealthy. Central Place Theory does help businesses decide the best location to expand or decide whether a business can exist in a region or not. For our purposes, Central Place Theory does the job.
References and acknowledgements
Site and Insight; Kit Salter
Regions and Concepts; Harm de Blij and Peter Mueller
Exploring Your World, Adventures in Geography; The National Geographic Society
The lectures of Dave Lanegran and Jerry Pitzl during the 1986 Summer Institute at Maclester College in St. Paul, Mn.
Thank you Gene Ullenhopp and Steve Slakey