Locational Analysis of Public Facilities.

Abstract

The concern of economists and location theorists for the problem of public facility location is growing rapidly. The present collection of essays aims to provide an overview of the problem both from the perspective of economic theory and operations research. A study of some basic ingredients of a public space theory and one on the main tools for spatial decision-making are offered. This is reflected in the content of the book, which is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the theory of local public goods and with public decision-making procedures in the spatial context. A survey of the current literature on local public goods is proposed and contributed papers follow which are devoted to particular aspects or to a critical discussion of the main approaches. Voting procedures in a spatial context are reviewed and extended. Then follows an application of planning theory to public goods in space. The second part is relative to the operational analysis of locational decisions in the public sector. The major models and methods are reviewed; their computational efficiency is reported on and some of their fundamental properties are discussed.