The LÖsch System of Market Areas: Derivation and Extension

摘要

Certain aspects of LÖsch's classic work on the network of markets and the system of networks have not yet been clearly explained in the literature. LÖsch did not describe his derivation procedures in full, and apparent printing errors in certain fÖrmulae confuse the issue further, with the result that several recent texts reproduce LÖsch's diagrams but offer no explanation of how they are constructed. Accepting the network of hexagonal market areas for a continuous system of markets, given an even but discrete distribution of population, the derivation from first principles of the complete system of different market areas is presented. Apparent errors in the translated text of LÖsch's work are corrected. Limitations in some other authors' work and accordance with earlier empirically derived formulae are mentioned. The production of “city-rich” and “city-poor” sectors is shown to be a constraint on, rather than a result of, the system, and LÖsch's statement that the coincidence of centers is maximized is clarified. The extension of the LÖsch system to the internal tertiary structure of the city is presented and attention drawn to the empirical attractiveness of this approach.