ABSTRACT
The American geographer William Bunge pointed out that the evolution of North America’s railroad network could be partly understood in the terms. The utility-maximizing network was characteristic of the Northeast and Midwest, where the larger metropolitan centers are clustered more closely together and where the demands for transportation are greater. In reality, of course, transportation networks aren’t as simple as Bunge suggests. Historically, variations in physical geography have tempted many geographers to explain the location of particular transportation routes almost entirely in terms of the prevailing topographical conditions. Classical central place theorists, like Walter Christaller and August Losch, provided elaborate formal geometries to describe these nested urban hinterlands, with intricate layers of large and small hexagons delineating the honeycomb-like market areas for highly and lowly ranked goods in highly and lowly ranked places. Chicago became the critical link that meshed the different American worlds of east and west into a single system.
