A conceptual approach to the description and analysis of an historical urban system

Barker D. (1978) A conceptual approach to the description and analysis of an historical urban system, Reg. Studies 12, 1–10. A set-theoretic approach to modelling urban systems at a particular point in time is outlined and applied to nineteenth century Somerset. The multivariate supply of retail and service facilities, i.e. the output of the system, is shown to be ordered, and is used to classify centres, using a non-hierarchic grouping technique. The hierarchic structure of the resultant taxonomy is verified using unidimensional scaling methods. The approach can be applied to crude binary data records of the presence or absence of supply facilities and can be spatially and temporally replicated whenever similar data is available.