The Random Spatial Economy: An Exploration in Settlement Theory

Author(s): Leslie Curry

Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Mar., 1964), pp.
138-146
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers
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 THE RANDOM SPATIAL ECONOMY: AN EXPLORATION
IN SETTLEMENT THEORY
LESLIE CURRY
Arizona State University

HE spatial arrangement and spatial opera- methods. It has been phrased as a static
tion of human activities are very complex equilibrium problem with a maximum effi-
so that the development of the branch of our ciency postulate based on optimizing behavior
science concerned with their explanation is and competition. Rational behavior is often
inevitably slow. The difficulties may be a useful and indeed indispensable notion but
grouped under three heads: (1) spatial speci- is not necessarily apposite in this context. It
fication; (2) decision rules used to organize is all very well when one can supply the
behavior; (3) expression of the logical conse- parameters within which choices are made,
quences of the interrelations of the two factorsbut in any general location problem, particu-
above. In physical geography, progress is larly in a dynamic framework, one cannot
easier because invariant modes of conduct begin to comprehend the infinite number of
are easier to come by, and either very limited decisions, rarely coincident in time and sepa-
situations are handled or the phenomena dealt rately motivated under differing circumstances
with may be massively and yet meaningfully and degrees of information. The complex of
aggregated so that in any event the spatial physical capital appearing as settlement and
specification problem is simpler. This paper communications networks are "going con-
attempts to cut the Gordian knot posed by the cerns" with a locational stability greater than
complicated interrelations involved by assert- the individual units composing them; their
ing randomness of behavior and/or random- economic viability seems to be due to the lag
ness of location and using probability theory effect of individual decisions. Many industries
as a language. As it turns out, the results of have been located for reasons which are now
various models formulated resemble the real irrelevant and how many more have ante-
world. At first sight such findings may be cedents which are unrecorded and unknown?
bewildering but their reasonableness improves Even in a static situation and with a relatively
with acquaintance. simple location problem Koopmans and Beck-
This paper attempts to explain some fea- mann found locations were indeterminate if
tures of settlement in the U.S.A. Clearly the intermediate producers existed and if optimi-
large numbers of relevant variables have to be zation was the goal.' Such a result denies the
pruned and aggregated to the point where possibility of a general theory using these
they are analytically tractable. Randomness terms and intuition suggests that no change
is postulated as affording a convenient tech- in the mathematical formulation would yield
nique for investigating the overall properties a unique answer. Even if a solution is found,
of this field. Such a formulation is neutral as the notion of optimum spatial equilibrium
to rationality whether socially or economically may not be useful in a dynamic setting, even
oriented: every decision may be optimal from if the future is known with certainty. "Any
a particular point of view and yet the resulting given pattern of plants will only be optimal
actions as a whole may appear as random. at a given point in time [and] any expansion
Lack of information, social ties, and so on will plan will result in less than optimum opera-
change an economic optimizing solution but tions at any given time."2
not the randomness formulation. Clearly such
SPATIAL SPECIFICATION
reasoning is useful only in particular contexts,
The major location theorists, von Thuinen,
especially in general location problems, and
Weber, Christaller, and Lbsch, have all re-
leaves more restricted, and more urgent, prob-
lems unanswered. 1 T. C. Koopmans and M. Beckmann, "Assignment
LOCATIONAL DECISIONS Problems and the Location of Economic Activities,"
Econometrica, Vol. 23 (1957), pp. 53-76.
Settlement theory has been developed within
2F. A. Lindsay, New Techniques for Management
location theory and generally adopts its Decision Making (New York, 1958).

138

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1964 RANDOM SPATIAL ECONOMY: EXPLORATION IN SETTLEMENT THEORY 139

V parameters, or that towns are distributed in

D d / unit areas according to a particular probability
series. A quantitative description of location
C b
is thus obtained which is simple enough to
work with, is more flexible than the regular,
and should be able to provide the same rela-
Y 7'/
tivistic results as in previous theory.

THE NORMALITY OF NEAREST NEIGHBORS

It is first sought to show that distances be-

tween nearest neighbor settlements, if ran-
domly distributed, will be normal. Here
appeal is made to a geometric demonstration
of the normal distribution which is not often
found in texts, so that an outline of the reason-
FIGURE 1. ing involved will be given.4
Given a settlement 0 and another P in
garded the absolute position of economic Cartesian coordinates x,y distant r from 0.
activities as so important that their descrip-
The probability distribution p (r) is required
tions of space use a map-like specification ofgiven r2 = X2 + y2. The small square abed of
locations. It is for this reason that the regular
side a contains P and it is assumed that it
or uniform distribution has been so popular, does so according to a compound probability
because it greatly facilitates the study of arising from two independent events: the prob-
spatial processes within a latitude-longitude ability that the point will lie within AB, i.e.,
framework. However,, any useful statements p(x)a and that it will lie within CD, i.e., p(y)a.
made from the models constructed are not tied The compound probability p ( x ) p ( y ) a2 will
to absolute space, since, being general, they remain unaltered if the axes are rotated from
refer to relative position only. OX and OY into positions OX', OY'. Con-
If it is wished to obtain a more realistic struction of another small square of side a
specification of lo-cations than the regular gives
distribution and yet retain a deterministic
0(x)0(y)a2 =O(x')O(y")a2
approach, overwhelming computational diffi-
culties are encountered. It is true that Hdger-If OX' is made to pass through P(x,y),
strand has brilliantly developed the simulation x = (x2 + y2)05, y = O.
of processes on maps so that absolute- location
is preserved, but only very simple processes Thus, +(x)p(y) = p{(X2 + y201)5}p(0).
are handled and his conclusions are inde-
Differentiating p with respect to x and then
pendent of the map.3 It is suggested that a
to y,
probabilistic rather than a deterministic loca-
tional specification be adopted. Now, instead 0'(X)/X0(X) = 0'(y)/yo(y).
of saying towns are located at points A, B. C,1 Since x and y are independent variables, this
and D, information which also specifies their equality can hold only if both terms are con-
relative location,, absolute location is ignored stant and equal say A.
and only relative location is described. In Hence loge, (x) (Ax2/2) + B
or + (x) = CeDW2. C and D are arbitrary
this manner,, it can be stated that towns of an
area are removed from their neighbors (near- constants. It is evident that +(x) must be
est or otherwise ) according to a particular finite for all finite values of x but by introduc-
probability distribution of such and such ing a scaling factor the rapidity with which
+(x) decreases as x increases may be con-
3T. HWgerstrand, "Migration and Area, Survey of trolled. This is achieved by writing -h2 for
a Sample of Swedish Migration Fields and Hypotheti-
cal Considerations on Their Genesis," pp. 27-158 in
the arbitrary constant D.
Migration in Sweden, A Symposium, eds. D. Hanner-
berg, T. Higerstrand, and B. Odeving (Lund, 4fH. Levy and L. Roth, Elements of Probability
Sweden, 1957). (Oxford, 1936), p. 121.

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 140 LESLIE
Since p (x) is a probability function
Jk O(x)dx= 1
it may be shown that C = h/70 5 and thus
+(x) = (h/7ro.5 ) e 2X2
the normal density function.
The probability of a particular value of y
occurring, given that there is a probability of
x, such that x2 + y2 = r2 has been obtained. In
other words, given the amount of northing
between adjacent settlements, the probability
of, say, easting between these settlements is
also known. This result can be used to obtain
the probability of a settlement being a certain
distance from its nearest neighbor.5 The
settlement at P will be north of the OX axis
and east of the OY axis by coordinates chosen
from normal distributions. Since it is known
that P is to be measured from 0 in positive
xy coordinates, the y and the x will be nor-
mally distributed. Because this is homoge-
neous space, the coordinates chosen at random
will be from the same normal series. Note
now, however, that it is not required that
X2 + y2 = r2, i.e., when x is large y must be
small: they could both be large or small. It
may be shown that the probability of the
distance of the settlement being between Ju
and JL + 8fk from 0 is
P = 2ph2e-A27,2h8
which is a normal series. This result could
equally well be obtained by realizing that the
convolution of two normal series is itself
normal.
This result only gains significance by reason a uniform arrangement of settlements on a
of Dacey's work on nearest neighbors.6 He
has shown that urban places having popula-
tions of 2,500 or more in the states of Arizona,
of Connecticut, and of Iowa, areas chosen
deliberately because of their apparent con-
trast, all show the distribution of nearest
neighbors to be closely fitted by a normal
series. While it is equally true that Dacey's
later more refined methods do allow one to
distinguish the degree of randomness, i.e., the
tendency to regularity or to clustering from
b Levy and Roth, ibid., p. 131.
6 M. F. Dacey, "Analysis of Map Distributions by
Nearest Neighbor Methods," Discussion Paper No. 1.
Department of Geography, University of Washington,
1958.
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CURRY March
randomness, the very difficulty of this work
and the early results mentioned above can
reasonably allow neighboring settlements to
be regarded as randomly distributed to a first
approximation. It may be noted that a normal
distribution could be obtained by taking
second nearest neighbors or any other con-
sistent set of measurements. Richardson, for
example, used all possible distances between
all points of a distribution in his work on
turbulent diffusion and obtained the same
distribution.7
THE LOG NORMALITY OF NEAREST NEIGHBORS OF
THE SAME SIZE
Assume for the moment that settlements are
distributed uniformly along a line with regular
spacing between them and that they are dis-
tinguishable into two groups with the two
groups randomly mixed. If each settlement is
examined in turn, p is the chance of obtaining
a settlement of a given size range and q =
1 - p is the chance of finding one outside that
range. The number of trials to obtain the
first success, here a city in the given range, is
pqlO.S Thus the probability distribution of the
nearest neighbor distance k between towns of
the same population size (in Thomas' termi-
nology) is in this case the geometric distribu-
tion. Here discrete variables are being dealt
with, but it is easy to show that in the con-
tinuous case the distribution of nearest neigh-
bor distances is described by the negative
exponential series, e'k.
It is clear that both of these distributions
are linear in their logarithms. Now although
line has been used for simplicity of exposition,
the results will apply equally well to the
settlement arrangements derived previously.
However, instead of the regular spacing be-
tween settlements used above it is necessary
to take account of the normal distribution of
nearest neighbor settlements. Thus the dis-
tribution of nearest neighbor distance between
towns of the same population size will graph
7L. F. Richardson, "Atmospheric Diffusion on a
Distance-Neighbour Graph," Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London, Ser. A, Vol. 110 (1926),
pp. 709-37.
8W. Feller, An Introduction to Probability Theory
and its Applications, 2nd ed. (New York, 1950), p.
156.
1964 RANDOM SPATIAL ECONOMY: EXPLORATION IN SETTLEMENT THEORY 141

log normally. Thomas' work on Iowa cities9 negative outcome "for fixed a (0 < a < 1) and
and King's on sample cities of the United n -> oc, the probability that the fraction k/n
States10 give significance to these results. of time spent on the positive side be < a tends
The two previous sections have been intro- to 27r-1sin-a0O-5." What is being done is to
duced solely to demonstrate that considera- make a running summation of the positive and
tions of randomness are relevant to settlement negative results at each trial and then to count
distribution. That immediately adjacent towns the number of subtotals which are positive =
are placed without regard to each other's k. The total number of partial sums = total
position save for maintaining a mean distance number of trials = n. For illustration, take a
apart is not unexpected. The location of one single settlement representing a large number
settlement can be only a weak determinant of of such towns. If the spin of a coin shows
the site of its neighbor. However, numerical heads, the town will add a manufacturing
values of the parameters of the distributions employee. The next addition will be de-
discussed above will be most useful in relating termined by another spin plus the previous
to other aspects of areas. Obviously only the spin. If tails, the subtotal is clearly zero, but
fringes of the problem of settlement distribu- we adopt the convention that a return to zero
tion have been touched, since there may still from the positive side will denote the addition
be considerable pattern or order in the spac- of a manufacturing employee. If the next spin
ing of the total system of towns. is tails, a service (nonmanufacturing) em-
ployee is added and so on. A running mean is
THE ARC-SINE NORMALITY OF URBAN
being formed and it is whether this is positive
MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT
or negative which decides what type of em-
King used an arc-sine transformation on the ployee will be added. The proportion of
fraction (persons engaged in manufacturing/ manufacturing (or of service) employees is
total populations) for his sample of towns in very likely to be very high or very low. If
the U.S.A. to obtain the normal distribution a number of these sets of trials are made for
necessary for regression and correlation stud- each town, the proportion of employees in
ies." It is reasonable to believe that the frac- manufacturing will be distributed according
tion mentioned above is a variable representing to the arc-sine law.
the convolution of two independent series, This provides a type of specialization
the normal and that approximated by an arc- process in which what has occurred in the
sine function. past affects the future only to the extent that
That there is apparently an arc-sine com- the past is summed up in the present. Eco-
ponent is surprising and most interesting. nomic structure is likely to change only slowly
Graphed, this is a U-shaped curve implying but it can change and occasionally very
that very few towns have a medium amount quickly. Above all, specialization, at least in
of this component of manufacturing, most the highly aggregated categories considered
towns having a lot or only a little, i.e., there here, may be purely a result of random im-
are specialized manufacturing towns or non- pulses over time. It may be seen that the
manufacturing towns with few mixed types inarc-sine law is not affected by the number of
this sector. The simplest model leading to the trials, provided that at least 20 be made. Thus
arc-sine law is given by Feller.'2 In a series of towns can be of any size. Indeed it is not
n consecutive trials with additive results, each necessary to have equally sized increments
having a 50: 50 chance of a positive or a occurring over time. Erdbs and Kac have
given a more general derivation of this law
9E. N. Thomas, "The Stability of Distance-Popu-
lation-Size Relationships for Iowa Towns from 1900- in which the dichotomous win-lose (Bernoulli)
1950," Proceedings of the I. G. U. Symposium in trials are replaced by drawings from any
Urban Geography (Lund, 1960), ed. K. Norborg independent random series having zero mean
(Lund, 1962), pp. 13-29.
10 L. J. King, "A Multivariate Analysis of the Spac-
and a variance of unity.'3 Nor need the vari-
ing of Urban Settlement in the United States," Annals,
Association of American Geographers, Vol. 51, No. 2 13 P. Erdbs and M. Kac, "On the Number of Posi-
(June, 1961), pp. 222-33. tive Sums of Independent Random Variables," Ameri-
:: L. J. King, ibid. can Mathematical Society Bulletin, Vol. 53, No. 10
12 W. Feller, op. cit., p. 80. (1947), pp. 1011-20.

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 142 LESLIE
ance equal unity, provided k is independent of
the variance of the series and does not equal
zero. Finally, the random variables can be
multiplied by any positive constant and the
same results are obtained.
The most serious objection to this model is
that it assumes no interrelations between
settlements, each town having as good a
chance as another of developing manufactur-
ing specialization. Thus manufacturing centers
would occur randomly without any real re-
gionalization other than the clustering which
occurs with randomization. It is obvious that
the American Manufacturing Belt would not
fit into such a scheme. A new tack will now
be tried by reinterpreting the arc-sine law as
resulting from a diffusion process and later
the specialization process outlined above will
be informally grafted to it. The aim is to
formalize the reasonable notion that manu-
facturing is more likely to develop in towns
near to other manufacturing towns than in
nonmanufacturing areas. It must be remem-
bered, however, that the term manufacturing
refers only to that component of manufactur-
ing which is arc-sine distributed.
Let there be a series of settlements regularly
spaced along a line and let the spin of a coin
determine whether the first settlement on the
line is to specialize in manufacturing or not.
A second toss is averaged with the first, this
result deciding how the second town is to
specialize. This procedure is continued so
that a genuine diffusion process results with
the arc-sine law describing, in this case, the
probability of various manufacturing/non-
manufacturing towns on the line. Definite
zones of manufacturing will appear separated
by zones of nonmanufacturing. Let a bound-
ary be drawn around each zone of manufac-
turing, even if the zone comprises a single
settlement on the traverse. For each fixed
a > 0, the probability that up to and including
the 2nth settlement the number of boundary
lines crossed will be fewer than a (2n) 05 tends and so on. It can be seen that the influence
as n - oo to
f (a) -(2/7r)O.5J"e-0.5s2ds
a truncated normal distribution with mean
(2/7r) 05 and variance (1 - 2/7r).14 In fact this
14 This equation is used for estimating climatic
fluctuations in L. Curry, "Climatic Change as a Ran-
dom Series," Annals, Association of American Geog-
raphers, Vol. 52, No. 1 (March, 1962), pp. 21-31.
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CURRY March
distribution provides a good approximation
with values of n as small as 20.
The main feature to note from this theorem
is the extremely small number of boundary
lines which are present, showing that definite
regions would occur-and this purely as a
result of random increments. However, apart
from their qualitative appeal, these results
have had no real checking and are introduced
solely to combine with the specialization
process and make it more plausible.
Now let the first settlement add an em-
ployee of a kind determined by coin-tossing
(Al). Next two spins are made, the first
(A2) being averaged with Al to give a second
employee to town A, the second (Bi) forming
a mean with Al to provide a first employee
to town B. The next three tosses are made
and three means formed (Al, A2, A3), (Al,
A2, Bl, B2), (Al, A2, Bl, Cl) to give in-
crements to three towns. It can be seen that
we have both town growth and diffusion oc-
curring and resulting in specialization by town
and by region. Again the arc-sine law will
apply, since it is not affected by how the
tosses of the coin are allocated. While the set
of trials for each town is no longer indepen-
dent, this does not affect the basic results,
provided a large number of towns are con-
sidered. Boundaries will still be infrequent
but they will occur and there will still be very
few towns having a medium amount of manu-
facturing. However, the number of trials, n,
will no longer correspond to the number of
towns.
Although a diffusion process has been de-
scribed, no diffusion coefficient has been
mentioned yet. The first town obviously is
autonomous in its direction of development,
the second town has approximately half of its
development determined by the first, the re-
mainder being indigenous, the third has about
one-third determined by the first, one-third
by the second, and one-third is autonomous
of the first town is declining with distance:
in fact, the decrease is exponential. The dif-
(1) coefficient would thus be written in
fusion
the form d-1/t, where d and t are units of
distance and time respectively. It should be
noted that the size of the towns has still not
been discussed, since the size of the incre-
ments can vary between towns and we have
considered only number of increments.
1964 RANDOM SPATIAL ECONOMY: EXPLORATION IN SETTLEMENT THEORY 143

Two rather peculiar features of the arc-sine manufacturing employees they will add to
law are worthy of note. From equation (1), their employment. If the successive ratio in-
the mean number of boundaries crossed varies crements for each town are averaged, a normal
with the extent of the area or rather with the distribution of cities having various ratios of
number of settlements considered. Boundaries manufacturing will result. Both experiment
become less frequent farther out from the and the central limit theorem attest the
diffusion source, implying that manufacturing validity of this remark. The notion here is
or service zones are wider than they are close that no specialization process is involved, but
in. There is greater areal differentiation in that in each period an entirely independent
this component of manufacturing near the drawing uninfluenced by the past or present
source than farther out. Such a characteristic is made. A drawing once made is not affected
would certainly bear investigation if the arc- by future conditions, although there could
sine component can be identified. presumably be random failures. In this way,
The second feature, which Feller terms the the ratio involved need not be related to any
Second Arc Sine Law,'5 is scarcely credible specific characteristics of the city, so that the
but nevertheless follows logically from the type of industries involved appears to be
premises. In words, this states that the prob- those not requiring linkages to other industries,
ability distribution of the length of runs of the so-called "footloose" industries or those
positive sums (or negative sums) and of the catering to local markets for example.
position of maxima are almost the same. The To sum up then, the fraction a/p, (number
maxima referred to are the accumulated posi- of employees in "linked" manufacturing/total
tive or negative signs, i.e., the maximum or population) is distributed according to an
minimum diffusion of manufacturing (or of arc-sine series and the fraction b/p (number
service) towns. Thus, for example, assuming of employees in nonlinked manufacturing/
the diffusion source in the U.S.A. to be in the total population) is normally distributed.
New York-New England area, it is very likely Thus the fraction ab/p2 is distributed accord-
that the greatest concentrations of either ing to the convolution of these two series, i.e.,
manufacturing or of nonmanufacturing ratios arc sine normally.
would occur on the Pacific coast (assuming No great exception can be taken to the
diffusion to be occurring along an east-west specialization process described above and
line), and this without regard to seagoing or since it agrees with King's findings, it can be
to the length of period of development of the accepted until a less aggregated model is
different areas. Equally, the second law im- devised. However, the idea of continuous,
plies that towns will generally show an one-directional diffusion out from a point
increasing degree of manufacturing or non- source may be less digestible. In its defense
manufacturing specialization with time, al- it can be remarked that viewed from within
though any individual case may be decreasing the system the diffusion origin would not nec-
its ratio. essarily be apparent: due to the frictional
The normally distributed component of effect of distance, the influence of the source
manufacturing industry which is being re- is cut to a minute value fairly quickly, and the
garded as separately allocated by an inde- alternating zones of specialization mask it
pendent process will now be examined briefly. further. The one-directional nature of diffu-
Presumably, this distribution could arise in sion is, however, more repugnant; i.e., cities
various ways, so that a very general "explana-lying to the east of a city will affect that city
tion" is offered here in the sense that as few
but they will not be affected by it or by other
assumptions as possible are introduced, in
cities farther west. It is not too difficult to
order not to contradict other more plausible
describe more realistic processes but it has not
models which might be offered. Let there be
been possible to obtain an arc-sine normal
a probability density function, the form of
distribution from them. Perhaps the most
which is not required, from which cities draw
random independent samples a number of promising approach is to have diffusion
times to decide on each occasion the ratio of passing down the urban hierarchy, but not
enough knowledge exists of the branching in-
"5W. Feller, op. cit., p. 83. volved.

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 144 LESLIE CURRY March

THE RANK-SIZE RULE Order is achieved by placing constraints on

the freedom of choice of action. This variety
The final feature of settlement to be dis-
of available choice may be called entropy
cussed is the rank-size rule, which was recently
and is the complement of the degree of order-
reviewed by Garrison and Berry.'6 Both
ing. The term arose in thermodynamics to
Simon'7 and Thomasl8 have already provided
describe the availability of energy for work,
stochastic theories in which the rank size rule
but such considerations are not involved here;
appears as the steady-state condition of types
this is not a chapter in social physics. Shan-
of pure birth processes. That is, they provide
non used it as the information content of a
random mechanisms operating through time
message or, more generally, as the variety of
to allocate people to cities with attention con-
choice available, because the formal prob-
centrated on the "contagiousness" of numbers
ability expressions in kinetic theory and in-
of people in attracting further people. How-
formation theory were the same.21
ever, it is possible to treat the subject from a
Consider N people divided among Z settle-
different and largely complementary view-
ments, each of which has an equal chance of
point, with locational choice and the structural
attracting a given population.22 The number
properties of towns in a static situation as the
of settlements having a population of i persons
focus of concern. This, in a sense, is a func-
is ZA. The total number of distinguishable
tional as compared to a genetic approach, to
ways in which the people can be distributed
use standard methodological terms.
among the settlements, neglecting the spatial
Berry has recently suggested an analogy
between features of central places and con- pattern aspect and considering only the fre-
cepts of information theory, but this idea is quency distributions, is
not amplified save for a reference to biological N

work which does not indicate its probabilistic P =Z!/11Zj!. (O <,i <-N)
i=o
basis.'9 Here random behavior is postulated
and concepts are used from information When the system is large, its entropy is
theory and from the study of self-organizing
systems. That appeal is made to the latter H = log P - Z log Z - :Zj log ZA.
needs no defense, since the existence of order Note that entropy is defined as log P.
is evident and no cosmic consciousness has H is maximized when
directed its development. As Vidal de la
Blache says: "Thus men establish new rela- Zi = (Z/n)e-4/n
tionships between scattered features. For the an exponential distribution, n being the mean
random effects of local circumstances they population per settlement N/Z. In terms of
substitute a new and coherent system of inter-the cumulative distribution function
locking forces."20
The results of an unrestrained random proc- Zi'<8= S(I- e /n) ,
ess can be defined as showing zero order. S being the size of the largest city. In this
case, Hmiiax= Z log (en.). The most probab
16 W. L. Garrison and B. J. L. Berry, "Alternate state of the system is that which gives maxi-
Explanations of Urban Rank-Size Relationships," mum entropy, i.e., when the sum of logarithms
Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol.
48 (1958), pp. 83-911.
is a maximum. This corresponds to a situation
17 H. A. Simon, "On a Class of Skew Distributions in which, given the size of the largest city,
Functions," Biometrika, Vol. 42 (December, 1955;) the probability of the q + 1st city having a
reprinted in Models of Man (New York: John Wiley population which is a given ratio of the qth
and Sons, 1957), pp. 145-64.
city is constant.
18E. N. Thomas, "Additional Comments on Popu-
lation-Size Relationships for Sets of Cities," in
Quantitative Geography (Atherton Press, in press). 21 C. Shannon and W. Weaver, The Mathematical
19 B. J. L. Berry et al., Comparative Studies of Theory of Communication (Urbana, Ill.: Univ. of
Central Place Systems, mimeographed report to the Illinois Press, 1949).
U.S. Office of Naval Research, Geography Branch, 22 H. von Foerster, "On Self-Organizing Systems
1962. and their Environments," in Self-Organizing Systems,
20 P. Vidal de la Blache, Tableau de la Ge'ographie eds. M. C. Yovitts and S. Cameron (New York: Per-
de la France (Paris, 1903). gammon Press, 1960).

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1964 RANDOM SPATIAL ECONOMY: EXPLORATION IN SETTLEMENT THEORY 145

It should be noted that this is a purely H'max= Z log (en/3).

random process and that the most probable
Again, urban transport workers must live near
state of the system which results is in no
other urban dwellers, rolling mills are near
sense a determined state. There are likely to
steel furnaces, and so on. There is a vast web
be considerable deviations from the most
of economic structural relations due to dis-
probable state, and this without affecting
continuities in technological scale. The order-
HIMax much, since this is a relatively insensitive
ing of settlements will reflect that technical
measure for large Z.23 The main premise of
and social structure which requires contiguity
this argument is that each settlement has an
and thus affects the size of units by lowering
equal chance of attracting a given population.
the value of N. Von Foerster has suggested as
This could be modified to each settlement
a measure of order
having no obstacles to extra population being
added, in general, to no special barriers or R = I1- (H'/H) ,
incentives to produce inhomogeneities in the where both H's are maximum entropies, both
system. The extent to which the rank-size rule consider the same number of people N, but H
is not followed in particular city systems repre-
has no structural properties, considering only
sents the insertion of such barriers. Note that individuals in isolation, while H' measures all
this argument can only be applied to groups of the structural relations occurring and re-
of cities not conforming, since the individual quiring contiguity in the system. Clearly if
city could well be out of line. Thus the fact no structure exists, H and H' are equal and R
that New York is less than might be expected is zero. On the other hand, if the system de-
is not significant; but were small centers in veloped into a single tightly clustered web of
general less numerous than might be expected, activities, one city, H' would become zero and
then there would be some "barrier" inserted
R would equal unity indicating complete
in the system. This could be, for example,
order. This last situation is extremely im-
overinvestment in the transport system at the
probable, however.
lower end of the scale, so that higher centers
Now in a closed physical system entropy
would be more attractive than was consistent
will increase with time and order decrease.
with the whole system.
However, a self-organizing system will, by
In one sense then the rank-size regularity
definition, be increasing order and decreasing
now appears as a trivial geographical problem
entropy. In present terms the size of social
and it is the systems which deviate from it
and particularly economic primary units will
which are of greater interest, as Garrison and
be increasing; structure requiring contiguity
Berry surmised. However, the form of the
is more developed and thus freedom of choice
distribution does not tell the whole story since
of location is reduced. Note that the equations
different degrees of entropy or ordering will
above are written for fixed N and Z so that
all be described as exponential functions.
data of a historical nature or from different
Maximum entropy has been described for Z
areas need to be standardized to check on the
settlements given n, the mean size of city, or,
degree of ordering of urban populations.
since n = N,/Z, given N, the total population.
Nevertheless, a casual glance at the data
So far the operating units of the system have
shows the U.S.A. as more ordered than India
been considered as isolated individuals not
and less than Australia, for example.
having structural relations with other indi-
viduals. But there are many relationships CONCLUSION
which insist on spatial contiguity between in-
The thoughts offered above have deliber-
dividuals, so that N is not the correct value
ately turned from economic theory as inspira-
to use. For example, the family in the U.S.A.
tion. Thus, for instance, they would be
ensures that an average of, say, three persons
difficult to tie into a theory of value, but we
will live together, so that N/3 should be used.
may, claiming Christaller and even Weber as
Maximum entropy in this case
precedents, leave this to the economists whose
province it is. The rationale adopted is that
23 S. Goldman, Information Theory (New York,
1953), p. 354. men, motivated by various ideas, act so that

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 146 LESLIE
from the point of view of the locational struc-
ture as a whole their actions appear as random.
This situation may be described as though the
places involved were making random deci-
sions or were acted on by random forces,
although this is only a convenient shorthand.
That a given set of premises contains logical
consequences which are in agreement with
reality is no guarantee that a model is itself
realistic. Several quite different models may
give the same result. This type of work can
only be judged over a period of years when
separate models are being articulated and
elaborated to the point where a whole theoret-
ical structure exists to explain many seemingly
isolated phenomena. In the meantime, cex-
plorations" are all that are possible with the
considerable chance that they lead only up
blind alleys.
But it is insisted that such explorations are
necessary, if we are to approach geography as
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CURRY March
system and process as Blaut24 and Chorley25
have convincingly argued. If the individual
decision maker acting rationally be taken as
the unit to be considered, conclusions such as
"Corn Belt farmers grow corn because they
live in the Corn Belt" are obtained but are not
very helpful. Alternatively, a history of unique
events is written to describe development and
the lawfulness or generality of process is
missed. Whether history is lawful is a matter
for those who write it to decide. That spatial
processes occur, to which the historian could
not contribute understanding but which are
the very stuff of geography, appears self-evi-
dent-or at least a worthy article of faith.
24 J. M. Blaut, "Object and Relationship," Pro-
fessional Geographer, Vol. 14, No. 6 (November,
1962), pp. 1-7.
25 R. J. Chorley, "Geomorphology and General
Systems Theory," Theoretical Papers in the Hydro-
logic and Geomorphic Sciences, Geological Survey
Professional Paper, 500-B (Washington, 1962).