ABSTRACT
The location theories discussed in the previous chapters analysed the location choices of individual firms or people. They disregarded, however, the existence of other activities or individuals and of dichotomous location alternatives: urban or non-urban areas, central or peripheral ones, areas with high or low concentrations of activities. When they considered the existence of several activities, they ruled out the possibility that these might locate in alternative urban centres. And when they dealt with several cities, they reached the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that the existence of urban systems apparently in equilibrium entailed that those cities must all be of the same size. Only thus could indifference to alternative locations be guaranteed because the levels of profit and utility were the same in all the cities (see Section 2.5).
