ABSTRACT
The control or promotion of the expansion of transport facilities is perhaps the most powerful geographically-specific instrument that government can use to guide economic development. The transport sector’s share of resources is determined by the necessity of overcoming distance in meeting society’s needs. A major determinant of the shape of the economic landscape as it evolves then, is the manner in which distance is conquered. A society at a given state of technology will attempt to develop a transport network to minimise the total disutility of distance. The original transport system consists of an infinitely dense square lattice of streets with a uniform cost of travel of c per trip mile. The residents are located in I this plan; at a, uniform density with one worker per residential site. The concentration of non-agricultural production to avoid movement costs, generates further growth.
