A city system; is a group of cities, which, in their evolution, have become interdependent because of the many relationship networks that they have and that interconnect them to a greater extent than other cities located in the environment. It is often the borders of a national territory that constitute the boundaries of a city […]
In the strong sense, segregation is a policy for setting aside or relegating a population forming a religious or racial sub-group by legally confining them to one or several quarters of a city (spatial segregation); these populations also undergo political, economic or legal disciminations (social segregation). Among the older segregation models we can cite the […]
The general theoretical position of spatial analysis consists in proposing a partial explanation as well as prediction possibilities about the state and probable evolution of geographical objects / entities, on basis of knowledge of their situation with respect to other geographical objects. There exists not yet any general theory of geographical space that could be […]
The general theoretical position of spatial analysis consists in proposing a partial explanation as well as prediction possibilities about the state and probable evolution of geographical objects / entities, on basis of knowledge of their situation with respect to other geographical objects. There exists not yet any general theory of geographical space that could be […]
Correlation of a variable with itself, whenever considering observations with a gap in time (temporal autocorrelation) or in space (spatial autocorrelation). If presence of a quality in part of a territory makes its presence in neighbouring areas more or less probable, there exists a contiguity effect in the spatial structure, the phenomenon shows spatial autocorrelation; […]
The central places theory was conceived, primarily by W. Christaller and A. Lösch, in order to explain size and number of cities and their spacing in a territory. It relies on a definition of city that considers it essentially as a distribution centre of goods and services to a scattered population, and on optimisation principles […]
– Process of grouping of persons or activities together in a same place or in an area of limited size. Settlement nodes develop through aggregation of migrants, cities through aggregation of houses or even of urban municipalities when speaking about agglomerations. Services and facilities of a same range aggregate to form a same functional level: […]
Area in which consumers of goods and services produced by a firm are recruited. In Christaller’s and Lösch’s theories, the market area corresponds to the area in which the transport cost tA, added to the price c of the good produced in A, does not surpass the price p that the consumer is willing to […]
(from Latin attrahere “to pull towards oneself”) From observation of flows between places, is deducted by analogy the existence of a force of attraction exerted by attributes of a place (site, resources, mass,…) on actors of another place. Attractiveness is a measure of the force of attraction of a place, generally function of the sum […]
Friction of distance is an expression that is sometimes used in order to designate the attenuating effect of distance on intensity of interactions between places, or else, in gravity models, the parameter measuring this gradient.