ARDHI UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF SPATIAL PLANNING AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

URBAN ECONOMICS AND REGIONAL GROWTH (EC 369)

GROUP No. 3; ASSIGNMENT II

PARTICIPANTS

1: PETER MIDELLO 11352/T.2017

2: ELINA ELIUD 11086/T.2017

3: EMMANUEL MNDEME 11341/T.2017

4: ELIAS GOMBE 10770/T.2017

5: AMADEUS NGAPONDA 10782/T.2017

6: CECILIA KUNDI 11075/T.2017

7: HAMIS JAMAL 11346/T.2017

8: ELIZA ASILIA 11338/T.2017

QUESTION

Write an essay on the link between having a well balanced and articulated hierarchy of
settlement and regional development.
Settlements are differing in size and functions based upon physio-historic and
socio-economic conditions, but they can be graded and grouped in the hierarchical order
in any regional set up. The spatial organisation of growth centres and their orders
distributed in geographic space is the main consideration in the present study. Hence, the
gradation and re-grouping of the growth centres into of size classes is termed as hierarchy
(Mulimani, 2002).

Hierarchy is the universal phenomenon due to variation in size and functions. The word
“hierarchy” is not a geographical term. The concept hierarchy was introduced by Walter
Christaller (1993), a German economic geographer in his Central Place Theory. The gradation
and grouping the settlement centers into size of classes. The concept of hierarchy is fundamental
to the central place theory (Mulimani 2006). However, in the present context, the hierarchy of
service centres or central places means classification on nucleated settlements in terms of the
degree of their servicing power to their respective environs on the basis of the assessment of
social services (Khan, 1990). The social services are also taken into account because they tend to
be located in close proximity of population concentrations as they are to serve the immediate
population. Conversely, the primary and secondary functions are bound to certain location.

The following are the explanation on the link between having a well balanced and articulated
hierarchy of settlements and regional development;
To determine the hierarchy of any settlement, it is essential to adopt the concept of
centrality of places. The centrality of settlement as growth centre is indicated by the
number of services it provides and proportion of these services supported by the
population.

Mulimani (2002) assigned the value of arithmetic progression to calculate the centrality of
rural markets in the drought prone regions in Karnataka with different economies and found
quite applicable in the prevailing socioeconomic conditions of the region. Therefore, as attempt
is also made to determine the hierarchy in the present study in the similar manner.Although a
major tenet of central place theory was that producers tend to locate as far as possible from
competitors, firms may recognize the advantages of agglomeration and the benefit of centrality
that results from adjacent location.

The development of central places depends on factors such as transport costs, expenditure
shares for relevant goods and the costs characteristics of stores. However, the hierarchy of that
evolved in the study region is an outcome of combined effects of geographical, historical, socio-
economic and political factors related to administration and religious aspects of the study region.

Planning commissions continue their efforts on industrial recruitment while the pursuit of
other development strategies such as retail-sector expansion may be overlooked.
Not only population but demographic characteristics, socio economic structure, potential
expenditures and shopping behavior are the most important factors to explain spatial clustering.

However, the hierarchy of that evolved in the study region is an outcome of combined effects
of geographical, historical, socio-economic and political factors related to administration and
religious aspects of the study region. The consumer might find it desirable to shop at multiple
locations on a single trips. Average transportation costs per purchase are lowered by multi
purpose shopping trips. The hierarchy of central places is essentially a product of the hierarchy
of functions, which in turn is determined by threshold and range of goods and services.

The hierarchical order does not agree with the natural breaks of population ranking. Mulimani
(2006) It is hypothesised that the mere higher population size will not determine the level of
hierarchy. The higher order settlements tend to exhibit specialisation of commercial activities as
compared to lower order centres. Some of the settlements of small population size have achieved
higher status tending towards a greater degree of specialisation.

In his regression analysis to rural communities, Mushinski (2002) concludes “incorporating

explicit geographic interdependence between establishments in a place and sources of supply and
demand in neighboring areas” exists, and is “particularly significant on the supply side”.
Moreover , “outlying establishments tends to reduce the number of establishments in a place,
which underlines the importance of spatial competition in retail development”.
Last but not least, in his statistical analysis of rural retail business, Shonkwiller (1996)
concludes, “retail business interdependencies exist and minimum demand threshold values for
various retail sectors are sensitive to the presence or absence of other type of retail firms”.

Thus, the importance of growth centres are governed by several factors such as
population, administrative set up and basic requirements of the settlements, banking,
educational set up, marketing status, transportation and many more. Further, the influence
of each factor cannot be the same as it differs from one settlement to another. The degree
of correlation that each variable tends to establish varies from one growth centre to
another, and this forms a sound theoretical base for the identification of hierarchy.