Commodity flows and urban structure: a case study in the Prairie Provinces
Creators: name: Thompson, Roderick Ross
Publisher: name: University of Calgary
Year: 1977
Subjects: subject: HC 117 P8 T54 1977 Microfiche
subject: Prairie Provinces - Economic conditions
subject: Geography, Economic

description: Bibliography: p. 284-294.
description: A decade ago Friedmann suggested that a state of 'empirical poverty' characterized the state of research on urban systems, in which the system is conceived as a set of nodal characteristics, and the flows between them. This study is designed to help alleviate this problem by providing a case study of the economic characteristics of the largest Prairie cities and the patterns of commodity flows between these centres. The analyses of the Prairie urban functional structure revealed that the cities are diversified and generally similar in structure (with an ordered rank profile) implying a competitive or hierarchical structuring. Within the overall diversification, however, manufacturing activities achieved considerable specialization 'inferring the existence of complementary or non-hierarchical sub-structures. The results clearly indicated the inadequacy of both the convergence and divergence hypotheses while lending support to Dziewonski's (1970) middle position of a combination of diversification and specialization in different economic sectors with their respective effects on the structuring of interaction. The interurban commodity flows were analyzed for six interaction matrices: rail, road and total commodity (15 classes) tonnages for the closed Prairie urban system and for the open system which includes the surrounding regions. A Q-mode factor analysis of the total aggregated set of flows, revealed a coherent and integrated group of (all) cities that characterized all flow structures for the Prairies; however, the rai l and road modes exhibited very different structures; Generally, the structures also clearly demonstrated the inadequacy of a strict hierarchy in describing Prairie interurban interaction. In addition, the findings revealed that the Prairies do not constitute an integrated functional unit, and they evidenced the declining role of Winnipeg as a 'gateway' city. 'The complexities of the individual commodity flows were interpreted by using dyadic factor analysis to identify the general structures of commodity patterns. Overall the empirical results revealed a set of three different structures which serve to demonstrate the multidimensional nature of interurban interaction. These were: 1. a hierarchical system of centrifugal flows of higher-order goods plus metropolitan interdependence; 2. local specialized light manufacturing flows (smaller-to-larger centres) associated with the road mode; and 3. an elementary two-tier hierarchy of centripetal flows of raw materials organized in interregional (periphery to core) rail contacts. The strength of these structures is embodied in their simplicity, strong commodity groupings, relatively high levels of explanation, and their applicability to other types of flows based on the concept of shadow networks. These findings have confirmed empirically many of the urban system concepts of authors such as Pred, Simmons, Dunn and Friedmann. In addition, these patterns revealed such non-hierarchical features as two-way linkages, strong horizontal connections among similar-order centres, smaller-to-larger centres flows, and metropolitan interdependencies.