ABSTRACT
Every nucleated settlement, whether hamlet, village, town, or city, is, in varying degree, a centre of services and organization for a surrounding area. The latter is definable as a variety of catchment areas, that constitute the field of spatial association of the centre. It is common knowledge that the village is normally the centre for the activities of its parish, that the town is the centre for an area within a radius of about five to ten miles, and the great city for a still wider area which it serves in its capacity as a king among towns and a regional centre of economic and social organization. The location of these focal points has been fixed since the time of their origin in the Middle Ages, but, in the last hundred years, industries have caused some to grow as great excrescences upon the countryside without any organic relation to it, and services have tended to concentrate in fewer centres, since in that way the services can be more efficiently rendered.
