Locating libraries on a street

Abstract.

Hotelling (1929) studied two competing firms choosing their locations on a street. We consider instead a planner who builds two identical public facilities (e.g., libraries, parks, bridges, etc). We ask a normative question: Where should the planner build these facilities? We prove an axiomatic characterization of the efficient social choice rules that satisfy what is called the replacement-domination, which is a formulation of the idea of “solidarity” among the agents.