AN ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION OF CITIES BY THE METHODS OF CENTRAL-PLACE THEORY (with reference to the Estonian SSR)

Abstract

Soviet geographers operate with the concept of the economic-geographic situation of places, reflecting the relationship between a given place and all economically significant outside factors. Attempts have been made to derive a measure of the economic-geographic situation, and the author proposes to use the methods of central-place theory for this purpose. He suggests a technique by which he proceeds from the idealized Christaller network to a transformed system of central places and then to a real-world system. He tests the technique by using the system of 50 central places in Estonia, a territory with a long tradition of urbanization. He also evaluates the situation of 16 Estonian urban places whose population is not growing or is actually declining and which have been designated as problem towns. The system of central places in Estonia is found to display good agreement with the predictions of the theory. The ratios of distances between central places at any two successive levels of the hierarchy also ...