Space+&+Scale

=Space & Scale=

**Transport and Spatial Organization**

Regions are commonly organized along an interdependent set of cities forming what is often referred as an **urban system**. The key spatial foundation of an urban system is based on a series of market areas, which are a function of the level of activity of each center in relation with the friction of distance. The spatial structure of most regions can be subdivided in three basic components: Jointly, these components define the spatial order of a region, mostly its organization in a hierarchy of relationships involving flows of people, freight and information. More or less well defined urban systems spatially translate such development. Many conceptual models have been proposed to explain the relationships between transport, urban systems and regional development, the core-periphery stages of development and the network expansion being among those. Three conceptual categories of regional spatial organization can be observed:
 * Regional Spatial Organization **
 * A set of **locations of specialized industries** such as manufacturing and mining, which tend to group into agglomerations according to location factors such a raw materials, labor, markets, etc. They are often export oriented industries from which a region derives the bulk of its basic growth.
 * A set of **service industry locations**, including administration, finance, retail, wholesale and other similar services, which tend to agglomerate in a system of central places (cities) providing optimal accessibility to labor or potential customers.
 * A pattern of **transport nodes and links**, such as road, railways, ports and airports, which services major centers of economic activity.
 *  **Central places:** urban systems models try to find the relationships between the size, the number and the geographic distribution of cities in a region. Many variations of the regional spatial structure have been investigated by the Central Place Theory. The great majority of urban systems have a well established hierarchy where a few centers dominate. Transportation is particularly important in such a representation as the organization of central places is based on minimizing the friction of distance. The territorial structure depicted by Central Place Theory is the outcome of a region seeking the provision of services in a (transport) cost effective way [Preston, 1985].
 * ** Growth poles: ** where economic development is the structural change caused by the growth of new propulsive industries that are the poles of growth. The location of these activities is the catalyst of the regional spatial organization. Growth poles first initiate, then diffuse, development. It attempts to be a general theory of the initiation and diffusion of development models. Growth gets distributed spatially within a regional urban system, but this process is uneven with the core benefiting first and the periphery eventually becomes integrated in a system of flows. In the growth poles theory transportation is a factor of accessibility which reinforces the importance of poles [Perroux, 1955].
 * **Transport corridors ** represent an accumulation of flows and infrastructures of various modes and their development is linked with economic, infrastructural and technological processes. When these processes are involving urban development, urbanization corridors are a system of cities oriented along an axis, commonly fluvial or a coastline. Corridors are also structured along articulation points that regulate the flows at the local, regional and global levels either as hubs or gateways. Historically, urbanization was mainly organized by the communication capacities offered by fluvial and coastal maritime transportation. Many urban regions such as BosWash (Boston - Washington) or Tokaido (Tokyo - Osaka) share this spatial commonality.

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