From Complexity to Simplicity

“Near is beautiful” was argued by Miller (2004, p. 248) in his essay on “Tobler's First Law and Spatial Analysis”. The awareness has also grown that relations among things that are near can generate complex spatio-temporal phenomena. The simplicity of Tobler's law invokes reflections on the complexity of interacting phenomena and the ‘simple’ laws which have been articulated in the scientific literature when attempting to ‘decode’ these phenomena. Certainly, from a spatial economic viewpoint, Tobler's law is consistent with the minimum cost-distance principle. In addition, Miller sheds light on the meaning of ‘near’ and ‘distant’: near is central to the space-economy, it is a more flexible and powerful concept than is often appreciated, and it could be expanded to include both space and time. Thus, not only (near or distant) space, but also the time component is fundamental in the analysis of the interacting economic phenomena. In parallel with Tobler, Hagerstrand (1967) pointed to the relevance of joint space-time diffusion processes, and Wilson (1967) linked spatial interaction with statistical information principles and entropy laws. An associated microeconomic foundation of spatial interaction modelling was subsequently developed by Anas (1983) on the basis of random utility theory (McFadden 1974). Later on, Nijkamp and Reggiani (1992) linked dynamic entropy with (dynamic) spatial interaction models.