On the complexity of locating linear facilities in the plane

We consider the computational complexity of linear facility location problems in the plane, i.e., given n demand points, one wishes to find r lines so as to minimize a certain objective-function reflecting the need of the points to be close to the lines. It is shown that it is NP-hard to find r lines so as to minimize any isotone function of the distances between given points and their respective nearest lines. The proofs establish NP-hardness in the strong sense. The results also apply to the situation where the demand is represented by r lines and the facilities by n single points.