Structural Spatial Interaction∗

∗The support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada research grant #410–87–1373 is acknowledged gratefully, as are the helpful comments of the referees.

This paper identifies a concept of structural spatial interaction. Although it is defined differently from its counterpart of structural unemployment in economics, it attempts to define a similar idea. In economics, the focus is on equilibrium in the supply and demand of labor. In this paper structural interaction is that which minimizes aggregate distance travelled, subject to constraints on origins and destinations. The structural interaction model produces an equilibrium, therefore, in the supply and demand of movers, while identifying a spatially efficient trip distribution. It is portrayed as a type of relaxed interaction model and is illustrated using an example of structural migration with Canadian interprovincial migration data.

Key Words:

• spatial interaction model
• structural interaction
• relaxed interaction models
• population migration
• structural migration

Notes

∗The support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada research grant #410–87–1373 is acknowledged gratefully, as are the helpful comments of the referees.