Interdependence in Urban Systems and Its Application to Political Reorganization

ABSTRACT

Formal political subdivision of space and areal functional organization rarely coincide. Recent political redistricting in England has recognized this asymmetry and reorganized political units in terms of city regions. A similar approach to that employed in studies preceeding the English legislation is applied to a study area in the United States and a similar methodology is employed. The datasets used to delineate urban spheres of influence and inter-settlement relationships include telephone flows, banking relations and newspaper circulation. The techniques of analysis include those of cartography, graph theoretic techniques and principal component analysis. The lack of correspondence between the functional and formal political spatial organization is demonstrated.