ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with applications at the macro scale (rather than meso or micro, which follow in subsequent chapters in that order). This is mainly because systems treated at the macro scale appear simpler – certainly more so than the meso scale and perhaps also, micro – since the system is usually described by a very small number of variables. In the examples chosen below, most authors are concerned with the city as a whole (Amson, Mees, Isard, Papageorgiou) or with a system of cities and settlement patterns (Casti and Swain, though their discussion is limited to ‘one centre at a time’, and Wagstaff); Dendrinos is concerned with a part of a city – its slums – while Poston and Wilson are concerned with single centres within a city but this seems appropriate to this section because of the small number of variables used for the main idea and because it is similar in spirit to the Casti and Swain approach. The meso implications of the Poston and Wilson approach will be spelled out in the next chapter. We also note that the available examples are theoretical (though Mees’ and Wagstaff’s examples in historical geography are exceptions to this).
