BASIC CONCEPTS IN THE ANALYSIS OF SMALL URBAN CENTERS OF MINNESOTA

Abstract

STUDIES in urban geography have been handicapped by the general lack of a method of measuring and classifying the functions or activities of towns. Occasionally attempts have been made at presenting such a method, but at the present time none has been generally accepted. This paper does not pretend to solve the many problems of functional analysis and classification, although it does point the way to an approach not usually taken. Following a brief survey of methods thus far put forward, the basic concepts on which functional classifications are built will be examined. From this examination a method for the measurement of functions will be derived and applied to the small urban centers of Minnesota. Methods thus far presented have been compiled from a number of different bases. Some of them, including that of Aurousseau,' have been assembled from general observations and expressed in the form of lists of types. Such lists are, in effect, expressions of the concept of functional differentiation. As illustrations of this concept such classifications are of great value, but their usefulness tends to diminish when they are applied to particular instances. The finality of such terms as manufacturing town, retail trade center, and mining town seems to exclude the possibility that a mining town may also have a significant function as a retail trade center or as a manufacturing town. The type list, therefore, offers little assistance in the analysis of the varying importance of activities in individual towns. Other classifications, most notably that of Harris,2 have illustrated the concept of func-