CENTRAL PLACE THEORY - CHRISTALLER AND LOSCH.
Urban Geography.
M.A. Semester – IV
Paper Code (GEO-401)
University Department of Geography,
Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University, Ranchi.
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Guidelines and tips
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
University Rankings
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Our save-the-student-ebooks!
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
Central Place Theory - Christaller and Losch., Study notes of Geography
Central place theory is a spatial theory in urban geography that attempts to explain the rationale behind the distribution, pattern, size and number of cities and towns around the world.
Typology: Study notes
2021/2022
1 / 24
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
Related documents
Partial preview of the text
Download Central Place Theory - Christaller and Losch. and more Study notes Geography in PDF only on Docsity!
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY - CHRISTALLER AND LOSCH.
Urban Geography.
M.A. Semester – IV
Paper Code (GEO-401)
University Department of Geography,
Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University, Ranchi.
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY – CHRISTALLER ANDLOSCH.
Central place theory is a spatial theory in urban geography that attempts to explain the rationale behind the distribution, pattern, size and number of cities and towns around the world. It also attempts to provide a framework by which these areas can be studied both for historic reasons and for the locational patterns of areas today. Despite having the same population number, one town might surpass another in its functional importance. On this perspective two theories have been advocated – the Central Place Theory (CPT) by Walther Christaller and its modified version by August Losch. These theories suggest that there is a relationship between the functions of a settlement and its spatial locations with regularity in the distribution pattern within an urban system. Walther Christaller, a German geographer, proposed his theory of central places in his book “Central Place in Southern Germany” (Die zentralen Orte in Suddeutschland) in 1933. He divided this book into three parts; the theoretical part, concerned with the setting up of the theory; the connecting part, which considered practical methods whereby the theory could be tested in the real world; and the third as regional part, where southern Germany was examined, and the methods formulated in the second part were applied to substantiate the theory. Of the three parts, practical methods and regional application had limited value. It is the theoretical part which is of great attention. The introduction to the theoretical part of Christaller’s book is entitled “Are there laws which determine the number, distribution and size of towns?” He attempted to develop a deductive theory which reveals the “Ordering Principle” in the distribution of towns. It attempts to explain the number, location, size, spacing and functions of a settlement within an urban system. Assumptions of the Model;
- There is an isotropic plane (flat surface) on which natural resources are evenly distributed.
Therefore, four major principles underlie Central Place Theory (CPT): Centrality, Complementary areas, Threshold and Range of goods and services. The Centrality of a place refers to the extent, to which a town serves it’s surrounding area and can only be measured in terms of goods and services offered. There are different orders of goods and services; for some are costly and rarely purchased (car) and will need large population to sustain them; others are every day need items and will require small population for its survival (bread). The variety and quantity of goods and services it provides for its population and neighbours underline its functional importance. The Complementary area is the area for which central place is the focal point. This area would be larger for bigger and more important central places and smaller for the less important ones. Threshold population is the minimum number of people required to support any good or service outlet established at central place (Fig.1). It is the minimum population which is required for the sale of good or to sustain any service. Some goods and services need large population and others a small population to achieve their threshold values. In an ideal case of uniform income, consumption and taste it can be stated in terms of population numbers. For example, a minimum varying population is needed to retain a doctor, bank or a post office. Also, a grocery shop needs a relatively small local population to keep up its business while jewellery or a car which is irregularly purchased needs a larger threshold population. The Range of goods is the maximum distance that a consumer is willing to travel to obtain certain goods or services (Fig. 2). At some range from the Centre the inconvenience of travel measured in time, cost and trouble will outweigh the value or the needs for the good or alternative nearer Centre becomes available. Like a length of the journey to buy bread, will be very small and hence frequent trips may be afforded as against a journey to buy a coat or a car or jewellery. The maximum range of goods and service is the farthest distance calculated in terms of time and
money that a consumer would travel to provide it. So a consumer who has to travel all the way to central place to buy a good has less money available than the one living at close proximity to central place because the former has incurred transport costs and so will be able to purchase less. After a certain distance, people cannot afford to buy good at all because transport exhausts them of money. It is every day for something cheap and frequently needed like bread or daily newspaper; people do not spend much time and money travelling to obtain it. Therefore, it has a small range. As against, for goods which cost more and are less frequently required, people are prepared to travel longer distance. But one cannot ignore the reality that most journeys fulfil multiple purposes, one can buy the bread and the coat on the same trip, but have been excluded from theoretical considerations. Fig. If the population is evenly distributed, the market areas determined by the minimum range will remain as small as possible and maximum number of firms will find space in the area served by the system. The marker area is circular because the transport costs increase proportionately with distance from the Centre (Fig.3). Goods with low thresholds and small market areas are low order goods and will occupy low order centers; goods with high thresholds termed as high order goods and will occupy high order centers. In between the high order and low order centers are the intermediate order centers selling middle order
Fig.4 Urban Hierarchy Fig.
Fig.6 Contribution of hexagonal market areas It is possible to isolate two limits in relation to each good and service as lower and an upper limit. The lower limit is noted by the minimum demand for a commodity or service that is threshold; upper limit is that beyond which a good will no longer be obtained from the centre, the range. In an isotropic surface of equal population density and with uniformity of income, in a model of town distribution, a settlement is given a rank B. This B serves the surrounding area in such a way that it’s one of the good number 51shows the upper limit, or range of 51 kilometres, and if the lower limit or threshold is such that it can only be offered at B, then it will be supplied over an area of 51 kilometres radius about B. If the next good numbered 50, has a range of 20 kilometres, then there will emerge a ring 1 kilometres wide unserved from B with that good. If the most closely packed equidistant distribution of settlement points as suggested by Christaller is adopted, then there will be a six of these on a ring about B. Christaller gives the distance between the centres as 36 kilometres. For still lower order goods the next location will be those at the centres of equilateral triangles joining the B centres, at these points K centres will emerge. Now the goods number 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14,
be surrounded by six other settlements of the next order. The low order centres position themselves on the boundaries of market areas of middle order centres. People at lower order centre will have a choice between three higher order centres since all three are equidistant. Each higher order centre then receives one third of the customer of six immediately lower order centres which are located on the boundary of its market area. It serves a population equivalent to two lower order centres (61/3), besides its own population. Therefore, overall it serves a total of three central places (61/3=2+1=3). For each one of the largest settlements there would be three of the second grades, nine of the third grade, twenty-seven of the fourth grade and so on. Thus, there is only one centre of the highest order and number of centres at every level below it increases by a factor of three (Fig.7) Fig.7 Central Places showing different Hierarch K=4, Transport Principle The transport principle states that the distribution of central places is most favorable when as many places of concern or importance lie on one traffic route between two important towns, the route being established as straight and as cheap as possible. The more unimportant places may not be taken into cognizance. The central places would thus be lined up on straight traffic routes which radiate out from central point. Central places are so located that lower order centres lie along the straight line paths between higher order centres. In the transport principle, a lower order centre is equidistant from two lower order centres (6*1/2)
plus, its own (1) making a total of four (Fig.8). When central places are arranged according to transport principle, the lower order centres are located at the midpoint of each side of the hexagon rather than at the corner. Thus, the transport principle produces a hierarchy organised in a k=4 arrangement in which a central place is nested according to the rule of four. This is termed as K=4 network principle. The number of settlement serving as central places at each decreasing in the hierarchy would be 1, 4, 16, 64,256...and so on. Fig.8 Different hexagonal structures and derivation of K values K=7, Administrative Principle The market areas of each of the higher order centres include the higher market area of each of the six neighbouring lower order centres (Fig.9 and Fig.10). This is because law and administration in theory do not experience exponential decay with distance but remain fully enforced up to the boundaries of the administrative units in which they are applied. This is
Fig.10 Central Place system DISAPPROVAL:-
- The Central place theory is majorly criticized for its oversimplification of the real world by making a number of assumptions.
- Large areas of flat land are rare.
- The positioning of settlements is generally random and not evenly spaced contrary to even spacing of settlements suggested by Christaller.
- The hexagonal pattern is suited for theoretical development but in the real world many other complicated factors are at work.
- The concept of perfect competition is untrue in reality with some firms making more money than others.
- A hierarchy of central places. Central places are grouped into order (second, third, and fourth) but these do not match with the theoretical expectations as there is a definite and clear ranking of centres within each other.
- Equal sized sphere of influence. As per the theory it is expected that two third order centres will have equal sized squares of influence. Central place theory suggests that each centre’s sphere of influence for its activities at any specific level will be equal in size to every other centre’s sphere of influence. But in reality this has rarely been the case.
- Every higher order centre also functions as a lower order centre in the CPT, but often lower centres have some activities which some higher centres have in Central place theory.
- Consumer travel behavior cannot be projected. Affluence, changes in taste, and preferences and greater mobility enabling people to travel farther to do their shopping and obtain required services have altered demand patterns for services and goods.
- Technological change has also brought about changes in the ways provision of goods and services are organized and located. Examples supermarkets, mall culture, online shopping.
- The government intervention (setting up of economic or residential base), planning and policy making (decentralization) and legislation (environmental, housing laws etc.) affect future growth of various settlements outside the town.
- Christaller envisaged each Centre with a particular function whereas they have many which also changes over time.
APPLICABILITY OF CENTRAL PLACE SYSTEMS IN INDIA
CPT is a normative in character and so limited in empirical applicability. No real world settlement system can be expected to conform to all the propositions of the Central Place. India’s hierarchy system is represented from the point of view of administration and demography. India has six level hierarchies of settlements at administrative level. At the top of the hierarchy is the national capital followed by state capitals, district headquarters, tehsil towns, block development centres and gram panchayat centres. The national and the state capitals are in reality important metropolitan cities, headquarters of district and even tehsils are recognized urban places. At a block level, block headquarters are large villages but not recognized as urban places. Gram panchayats as per their definition are rural in nature, though provides wide variety of service to hamlets, they can be said to be central places of lowest order. The administrative hierarchy of settlements in India differs considerably from the central place system under the administrative principle as pointed by Christaller. Theoretically, there is a ratio of 1;7 between the number of settlements of higher and lower orders. In India, ratio of districts to state is almost 1:19, where gram panchayat per community development block may reach up to 40 in number. Also, the number of tehsil per district is slightly over six and this corresponds to administrative principle quite closely. Again, from the theoretical point, the spacing between settlements of lower and higher order should increase by a factor of 2:6 in most cases; in India this ratio is much greater. Here again, the spacing of tehsil and district level centres confirms to the theory. However, an administrative hierarchy of places doe exists, though the number and spacing of different hierarchical levels of places is far from ideal. Another perspective to the study is census of population, where system of hierarchy of places is commonly recognized. These range from million cities to revenue villages having less than
500 populations, which in India are recognized as hamlets. The population size of the settlement bears some relation, even if roughly, to the centrality of the place. The settlements in India show a close similarity to the theoretical central places systems based on the marketing principal. In this system the ratio of spacing of higher order centres to the immediate lower centres is 1:1.72. The actual ratio of spacing varies from 1.41 to 1.83 except with two exceptions of villages and medium towns. The major exceptions relate to million cities, which are in fact primate cities. Therefore, it may not be correct to convincingly state that the central place systems apply to the Indian conditions in totality. Also, on the other hand it cannot be rejected completely as well. AUGUST LOSCH In 1940, famous economists August Losch published book titled “Economics of Location” in which he established a general theory of location. Losch sought to draw attention to the marketing factor and the idea of maximum profits related to sales revenue. He claimed that it’s not a single economic pull that influences most settlements rather a complex combination of market, communication or administration. He attempted to explain the size and shape of the market areas within which a location would command the largest revenue. He based theory on set of assumptions like
- An isotropic surface
- Constant supply of goods and services
- Population is evenly distributed
- Demand decreases with an increase in price. If the price increase is the result of an increase in the transport costs, demand would decrease with the distance from a production centre, the demand curve would be cone shaped and the market area circular.
- Entrepreneurs act as an economic man, their main aim being profit maximization.
“August Lösch was a German economist, known for his seminal contributions to regional science and urban economics. Born in Öhringen, Württemberg, Lösch obtained his doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1932”. Fig.12 hexagonal market area Losch attempted to find a spatial structure that would be competent for both the producer and the consumer. To identify it, he chose one production centre from the entire set of production points established on the planes. He then arranged the hexagons in such a fashion so that this one centre was common for all. He then rotated the hexagons around the central point and brought them to the rest where the maximum number of hexagons
coincided, forming points of maximum demand, which should ideally develop for concentration of industry. Thus, like Christaller’s hexagonal pattern, though smaller in size, twelve sectors developed. Of the twelve, six sectors emerged in which many settlements existed and numerous services were offered and other six sectors where settlements and services were scanty. PONDER SAID THAT:- Christaller’s pattern is best suited for those cities which developed in sparse settlement regions but that of Losch’s for densely populated regions. The hexagonal structure is dependent on the number of the units required to institute the production of a commodity. This number will fluctuate considerably from commodity to commodity. Losch unlike Christaller, allows for this fact and adapts it into his structure. He opines that given the closest packed distribution of farms or units and their hexagonal market areas the smallest number of farms which may be served will be three in number. This being the minimum threshold and thereafter the succession will continue through four and seven. This is in consensus with the argument developed by Christaller, but Losch continues to the whole series of succeeding arrangements. Christaller only isolated the three smallest cases 3, 4, and 7. But for Losch the whole series continues as 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 13, 16 etc. He proceeds to contemplate the ten smallest areas and tabulates the relation between them (Fig.13 and Fig.14). Thus, the points of maximum demand will emerge as concentration of industry. ACCORDING TO PONDER:- Hexagonsare used in theory to delineate market areas because: a. Circles are equidistant from centre to edge, but they overlap or leave gaps. b. Squares nest together without gaps, but their sides are not equidistant from the centre. c. Hexagons offer a compromise between geometric properties of circles and squares.