Urban World History: An Economic and Geographical Perspective

Chapter 10 - Understanding the Impact of Motorized Transportation

CHAPTER 10 Understanding the Impact of Motorized Transportation© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch10_EP4.indd 417 G1588_ch10_EP4.indd 417 10/02/09 13:40:57 10/02/09 13:40:57 © 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch10_EP4.indd 418 G1588_ch10_EP4.indd 418 10/02/09 13:40:57 10/02/09 13:40:57 In Chapter 2, the concept of attraction point has been introduced, and in Chapter 6, the Weber problem has been briefly defined. Here, the same concepts will be used to demonstrate, as simply as possible, that evolving from animal to motorized transportation has radical effects on the polarization processes, in order to explain why before the appearance of motorized transportation the world rate of urbanization probably never exceeded five percent, while, since the introduction of that form of transportation, that rate rose to about fifty percent. This will lead us to examine the basic paradox of space-economy. s THE IMPACT ON POLARIZATION OF EVOLVING FROM ANIMAL TO MOTORIZED TRANSPORTATION In order to understand the historic impact of evolving from animal to motorized transportation, it is necessary to introduce the concepts of location function, references points, attraction points, repulsion points, attractive force, and repulsive force. Reference, Attraction, and Repulsion Points When a location has to be found for a new activity, for instance a shoe factory, the decision-maker is guided by a location function. In the shoe-factory example, the location function consists of minimizing the total cost of transportation for the shoe factory, including the cost of transporting the leather and the soles to the factory, and the shoes to the market. Through the location function, the decision-maker takes into account various reference points: in this case, the location of the leather supplier, the location of the sole supplier, or the location of the market. If there is an advantage to locating the shoe factory closer to a given reference point, this reference point is referred to as an attraction© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch10_EP4.indd 419 G1588_ch10_EP4.indd 419 10/02/09 13:40:58 10/02/09 13:40:58 420 Urban World History© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés point (since it “attracts” the location of the new activity). Similarly, if there is an advantage to locate the activity farther from a given reference point, this reference point is designated as a repulsion point; for example, it could be better for the decision-maker to locate the shoe factory far from downtown where the land prices are high, downtown being a repulsion point as far as land prices are considered, in a situation where land prices regularly decrease with the distance from downtown, which is typical. The advantage the decision-maker finds in locating the shoe factory one kilometer closer to an attraction point is called the attractive force exerted by the attraction point on the activity that has to be located. The attractive force can be measured. In our example, the attractive force exerted by the location of the leather supplier corresponds to the savings made in terms of transportation cost of the leather used by the shoe factory when the location of the shoe...