3 theoretical landscapes
TRANSCRIPT
Theoretical Landscapes
M C Escher – Day and Night
Ways we have already used to explain settlement forms and distribution
• Nagle 248/251• Revision of site and situation, nucleated,
liner, cruciform and dispersed, function and hierarchy
Some geographers have tried to use models to explain settlement patterns.
Just like with the migration models we analysed earlier in the course we should try to make a judgement about the effectiveness of each approach.
Do they help us understand and explain what we can observe?
Where do mountains, rivers, political barriers, personal preferences, individual behaviour, railway lines and motorways fit in these models?
Is there a danger of us trying to fit reality to the models?
Do these models give us an objective method with which reality can be tested?
M C Escher Print Gallery
Do we see reality or just a representation of reality?
Central Place Theory - Walter Christaller (1933)
Nearest Neighbour Index – P.J. Clarke (1954)
Rank-Size Rule – George Zipf (1949)
Gravity Model - William Reilly, Law of Retail Gravitation (1931)
Here are our models…
You are going to work in groups to…
•present a clear explanation of the model
•use the model on a real place to test its usefulness
•present your results
And that real place is…
Central Place Theory - Walter Christaller (1933)
Nearest Neighbour Index – P.J. Clarke (1954)
Rank-Size Rule – George Zipf (1949)
Gravity Model - William Reilly, Law of Retail Gravitation (1931)
Integrated Approach 402 – 411
Nagle 252 – 257, 291
• Explanation• Data and results• Conclusion• Real world application / implications• Does it help us?• What use is it?
Some points
• Useful for comparison. Rank size rule and urban primacy.
• Useful for developing a testable hypothesis. Nearest Neighbour - effect of topography on rural settlement distribution.
Central Place Theory
• Useful basic concepts. • Range, threshold, low/high order goods,
sphere of influence.• Also Law of Retail Gravitation (% of trade
two towns have from a settlement lying between them)
• Is a reference. How and why does reality differ from the model?
But…
• Isotropic plains don’t exist in reality.• People are not always rational in their
behaviour. • Change. Eg bulk shopping, car ownership.• Speciality of settlements. Tourism. • Does not take into account transport type
or social/economic characteristics of population.
Other options
• Use of secondary data. Census data with more detailed info on socio/economic characteristics.
• Use of primary data. Eg interviews. Why not just ask people where they shop, which settlements they travel to, why they live where they do?