Land Uses and Locations

Abstract

We have identified in partial manner a triad of elements of the space economy for investigation one at a time: land uses, flows and networks. An inquiry into their independent workings and intermeshing must start with an explanation of the use and value of land, given the costs of transport. For clarity and simplicity of exposition, the effect of the structure of the transport system on the arrangement of uses can be neutralized by invoking the myth of an isotropic plain with equally costly movement in all directions from any point. The results generated in this Euclidean space may then easily be mapped into the space of an abstract, symmetric transport network, and with a little more difficulty into the unique particulars of geographic space, as we shall see in Chapter 6.