ABSTRACT
Geographers study urban places at two quite different scales. At one scale, they study the internal structure of individual cities by examining such things as land use patterns, transport networks, ethnic and social distributions, and neighborhoods. In 1870, the Civil War was over and the nation was entering a period of rapid growth and industrialization. Milwaukee had grown quickly during the preceding two decades to well over 25,000 people. Geographers use the concept of a basic to non-basic ratio to measure the impact of changes in basic employment. Basic employment can be divided into two parts. Urban places exist to provide goods and services to their surrounding market areas. Geographers use central place theory to explain the size and spacing of urban places. Central place theory, however, deals only with settlement-serving trade. A few basic concepts of central place theory vastly improve our understanding of the urban system of Wisconsin.
