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The Von Thuenen Paradigm, the Industrial‐Urban Hypothesis, and the Spatial Structure of Agriculture
Author(s) -
Katzman Martin T.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1239298
Subject(s) - agriculture , empirical research , urban structure , regional science , economics , economic geography , sociology , urban planning , geography , epistemology , engineering , philosophy , civil engineering , archaeology
The industrial‐urban hypothesis has stimulated considerable empirical research on the spatial structure of agriculture. The alternative paradigm of von Thuenen has had almost no such impact on agricultural research, but has been the mainstay of urban economic analysis. The two models are compared as scientific theories of agricultural land use in an attempt to identify their similarities and contradictions. After reinterpreting several industrial‐urban studies from a von Thuenen viewpoint, an empirical discrimination between the two models is attempted with Brazilian data. A synthesis of the two paradigms provides a better explanation of agricultural structure than either alone.