ABSTRACT
Every urban settlement, large or small, is in some degree a headquarters of trades and institutions, for the very essence of urban character is the provision of goods and services for a tributary area. ‘Cities do not grow up of themselves, countrysides set them up to do tasks that must be performed in central places.’ 1 Thus wrote the late Mark Jefferson, one of the most stimulating geographers of the last generation, using for the first time, we believe, the term ‘central place’ to mean a focus of manifold human activities serving a surrounding area.
