ABSTRACT
The evolutionary nature of the metropolitan anatomy is, of course, widely recognized, and this fact is reflected in a wealth of studies of the historical-geographical development of individual cities and of the anachronistic legacies that make up much of the urban physical plant. Yet research on systems of cities, cities as central places, cities and transportation networks, internal spatial structure of cities, and rank-size distributions has lacked a general historical context. Most American metropolitan areas, throughout much of their history, have functioned chiefly as collectors, processors, and distributors of raw materials and goods. Consequently, it might be expected that changes in their growth rates would have been particularly sensitive to changes in the size and resource base of the hinterland and the technology of transport and industrial energy for the processing of primary resources. The technology partly defines the resource base, and the transportation technology, in particular, strongly affects the size, and therefore the resources, of a city's hinterland.
