Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
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Field Note
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Many trade areas in the United States are named, and their names typically
coincide with the vernacular region, the region people perceive themselves as
living in. In promoting a trade area, companies often adopt, name, or shape the
name of the vernacular region. In Oklahoma, the label Green Country refers to
the northeastern quarter of the state, the trade area served by Tulsa. Tourism
promoters derived the label in the 1970s, and the Tulsa media have used the
name since. Promoters see the label as positive, implying Green Country is a
landscape of forests, lakes, rivers, hills, and wealth—a perception that chal-
lenges popular notions of Dust Bowl Oklahoma as a treeless, dry, fl at, windy,
and impoverished region of the 1930s. Green Country's popularity is confi rmed
by the hundreds of businesses, organizations, and agencies that have adopted the name. In turn, the presence of the trade
area name throughout the cultural landscape reinforces the vernacular region, strengthening the importance of the region
in the minds of the people.
Figure 9.20
Credit: Brad Bays, Oklahoma State University
about 6 million (that is, half the population of the larg-
est city); the third city will have 4 million (one-third); the
fourth city 3 million; and so on. Note that the size differ-
ences between city levels become smaller at lower levels of
the hierarchy, so that the tenth-largest city would have 1.2
million inhabitants.
Although German Felix Auerbach suggested the
rank-size rule in 1913, linguist George Zipf is credited
with establishing the mathematical equation for the rank-
size rule in 1941. Since then, scholars across disciplines
have tested the rule and questioned when the rule applies
and when it does not. Studies in 1966, 1980, and again in
2002 found that the majority of countries they tested had
populations with more even distributions than the rank-
size rule would predict. Other recent studies have ques-
tioned why the rank-size rule fi ts the countries where it
does fi t, and these studies have offered answers including
a combination of random growth (chance) and economies
of scale (effi ciency).
The rank-size rule does not apply in all countries,
especially countries with one dominant city. States often
focus development in one particular city, such as the capi-
tal city, thereby bolstering that city and its population
above the rest of the cities in the state. In 1939, geogra-
pher Mark Jefferson defi ned a
primate city
as “a country's
leading city, always disproportionately large and excep-
tionally expressive of national capacity and feeling.” He
saw the primate city as the largest and most economically
infl uential within the state, with the next largest city in the
state being much smaller and much less infl uential.
Many former colonies have primate cities, as the
colonial powers often ruled from a single dominant city,
where economic and political activities were concen-
trated. Examples of primate cities in former colonies
include Mexico City, Mexico and Manila, the Philippines.
In the noncolonial context, London and Paris each serve
as examples of primate cities in the United Kingdom and
France, respectively.
Central Place Theory
Walter Christaller wrote the classic urban geography
study to explain where cities, towns, and villages are likely
to be located. In his topic,
The Central Places in Southern
Germany
(1933), Christaller laid the groundwork for
cen-
tral place theory
. He attempted to develop a model to pre-
dict how and where central places in the urban hierarchy
(hamlets, villages, towns, and cities) would be functionally
and spatially di
stributed. Christaller began his theory of
development with a set of assumptions: fi rst, the surface of
the ideal region would be fl at and have no physical barriers;
second, soil fertility would be the same everywhere; third,
population and purchasing power would be evenly distrib-
uted; next, the region would have a uniform transportation
network to permit direct travel from each settlement to the
other; and, fi nally, from any given place, a good or service
could be sold in all directions out to a certain distance.
Through his studies, Christaller calculated the ideal
central place system and then compared his model to
real-world situations and tried to explain the variations
and exceptions. In the urban hierarchy, the central places
would be nested, so the largest central place provides
the greatest number of functions to most of the region.
Within the trade area of the largest central place, a series
of larger towns would provide functions to several smaller
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