von Thunen’s Theory

A German landowner and economist, Johann Heinrich von Thunen developed a model which attempts to analyze the relationship between differences in spatial location and land utilization patterns. The von Thunen’s Model illustrates the effects of location relative to market, and transportation facilities and costs, on land utilization practices.

According to von Thunen, transportation costs include not only the transfer of produce to market, but also the time, effort, and inconvenience associated with moving workers and supplies to and from various production sites. With this, he argued that the first zone would be used for garden plots and other intensive uses which call for considerable care and travel on the part of the villagers. The second and third zones were devoted to uses involving heavy, bulky, and hard-to-transport commodities while those uses involving more easily transported products were located at even greater distances from the city.

Nowadays, some of the von Thunen’s assumptions do not hold true due to modern transportation facilities. But it is still advantageous to locate a production area near the market wherein transportation costs can be reduced at the minimum level or better yet, none at all.

References:

Barlowe, Raleigh. Land Resource Economics: The Political Economy of Rural and Urban Resource Use. (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1958).

Berry, Brian and Allen Pred. Central Place Studies. (USA: Regional Science Research Institute, 1965).

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