Spatial Flows and Competing Central Places: Towards a General Theory of Hierarchical Interaction

This paper presents a variation of Fotheringham's competing destinations model using categorized information on spatial flows in a central place system. A competing central place model is developed using spatially defined choice sets for origin — destination pairs by threshold distance and central place order. The competing central place generalization is empirically tested by undertaking a comparative analysis of 1980 domestic airline passenger traffic amongst selected cities in the continental United States. A host of modeling strategies are contrasted and the effects of mass, separation, and competitive forces noted in the presence or absence of hierarchical data. The production-constrained competing central place specification is shown to exhibit not only greater explanatory power than Fotheringham's competing destinations model, but also significant reductions in potential multicollinear relations between regressors. The model is later extended to incorporate an intervening opportunities filter. Competitive flow patterns between paired origins and destinations are then delimited by geographic range, compatibility, and the impeding effects of substitute and/or intervening flows within a hierarchical network.