URBAN GEOGRAPHY LESSON 2
THE STUDENT WILL BE ABLE TO DISCUSS…
 How central place theory works.
 Today’s PowerPoint borrowed heavily from:
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY
 Kind of a big deal.
 Walter Christaller
 1933 study of South Germany
 Assumes flat, homogeneous surface, an evenly I’m a big deal.
distributed population, and equidistant
patterns.
 Evenly distributed resources and that people
will only travel nearest distance for what is
desired
 Shows relationship between urban areas
 Includes hinterlands & range cities need to
maintain size
RANGE & THRESHOLD
 Range is the maximum distance that people are willing to travel to
purchase a product or partake in a service; it may vary depending upon
the product.
 You want a soda; how far are you willing to go for it?
 Typically no more than a mile or so; it is a low cost item and commonly
available
 People go to the closest store for a soda
BUSINESSES STILL USE THIS THEORY
Business Owners find out the threshold for their business
pre-opening
How many water beds do I need to sale to be profitable?
The range is also good to try and figure out, but most wait
until after they are opened.
Businesses use census tracts to determine potential
business
When advertising commercial property it is usually included
(Next slide)
HINTERLAND
Sometimes called “market area”
It is the area in which a product, urban area, or commercial out
has influence (See next slide)
The area that they are drawing from
THRESHOLD
Threshold applies to the product; it’s the
minimum number of customers needed for it to
succeed.
 Threshold for a bottle of soda is lower; less range to find customers
 Waterbeds need a wider range to find customers
 I have fixed costs of $2,000 a month (rent, electricity, insurance)
 I have one employee for $10 an hour, 40 hours so $400 x 4 ($1200)
 (I’m ignoring taxes & insurance)
 So, if I make a profit of $300 on every water bed I sell; I need to sell at
least 11 waterbeds a month
RANGE & THRESHOLD (RECAP)
 The range of a good or services is the maximum distance that people
are prepared to travel in order to obtain it. (short distances for a low
order item e.g. newspaper)
 The threshold of a good or services is the minimum number of people
required to support it i.e. 2500- doctors surgery
 500-primary school/ 25,000-shoe shop 60,000 for a large supermarket/
 100,000- large department store/ 1million University
 The more specialised the service the greater the number of people
needed to make it profitable.
HIGHER & LOWER ORDER GOODS (ALIGNS
WITH URBAN HIEARCHY)
 Low order items (basic items)= newspaper
 High order items (specialised items)= furniture
 Low order functions (basic services)= corner shop/ Primary school
 High order functions (specialised services)= university/ hospital
 Settlements providing low order services = low order settlements
(rural)
 Settlements providing high order services= high order settlements
(urban)
CENTRAL PLACE FUNCTION RULES
 1. The larger the settlements are in size, the fewer in number they will
be
 2. The larger the settlements grow in size the greater the distance
between them
 3. As a settlement increases in size the range and number of it’s
functions will increase
 4. As a settlement increases in size, the number of higher-order services
will also increase (the services become more specialised)
WALTER CHRISTALLER’S MODEL OF CENTRAL
PLACES
 The theory states that threshold and range act as laws that govern the
number, size and distribution of settlements
 When these 2 factors act together they create a hierarchical landscape
 Christaller noticed in the flat land of South Germany that towns of a
certain size were roughly equidistant (uniformly spread)
 He stated that the ideal shape for each towns sphere of influence
should be a hexagon because circles either leave gaps (which are
unserved by any central place) or they overlap (meaning one area is
served by too many central places)
CHRISTALLER'S CENTRAL PLACE THEORY
 Best shape for a sphere of influence is a hexagon.
 Consumers still have accessibility to the highest order central place and its trading
area from all parts of the hexagon.
 Christaller's key idea was that customers would go to the nearest higher order
central place to buy goods and services
 High order central places act like a magnet for consumers.
 In order to make his theory work Christaller had to make a few assumptions
 He assumed that each trading area had an isotropic surface (that the whole area
was the same all over) i.e.
 the whole area was flat
 there was only 1 form of transport (and transport costs were proportional to
distance)
 the population was distributed evenly across the plain
What's wrong with circles?
What’s wrong with circles
The areas within the black
dots shows the sphere of
influence (trading area) of
the largest settlements
The high order (3rd order) settlement
(A) in the middle is surrounded by
medium order settlements (black dots)
and lower order settlements (small red
dots). These consumers are attracted
in equal amounts to whichever large
central place is nearby.
Example -the highlighted lower order settlement
(village X) will have 1/3 of is consumers go to the city
(settlement A) and 1/3 will go to town Y and 1/3 will
go to town Z (middle order settlements)
All the other lower order settlements (red dots) will
follow the same pattern.
THE USES OF CHRISTALLER’S CENTRAL
PLACE MODEL
The model is often used by governments to plan the
location of new towns (i.e. Milton Keynes) and high
order services i.e. hospitals
It is used by transport authorities to plan transport
routes( so that all areas have equal access
Businesses can use the model to decide where to locate
a new shop
LIMITATIONS OF CHRISTALLER'S MODEL
Few real-life regions fit Christaller's model (Kansas?)
 The problem lies in the basic assumptions of the model:
 People do not always go to the nearest central place (they may chose a
new edge of city superstore further away) So the K3 theory wouldn’t work.
 Large areas of flat land rarely exist. Mountains & hills etc distort transport
routes (so the K4 theory wouldn’t work)
 People and wealth are not evenly distributed (if poorer people live in a
certain area & their nearest high order settlement is expensive then they
won’t visit it)
 Governments often control where new towns are located, not market
forces (i.e. not necessarily where the demand for goods and services is
highest)