Toward a Geography of Price

Physical distance and time are considered basic dimensions not only of a physical system but of an economic system as well. Space, time, supply, and demand are, when interwoven into a pattern of analysis, a vitally important aspect of the American economic system viewed in a time-space continuum.

This book presents the results of research into this theory of geographically influenced price ranges. With emphasis on the slowly recognized and slowly emerging concepts of space and time, the author surveys the development of thought in economics and the physical sciences, from Galileo's time onward, and points out that the end has not been reached: we are only beginning to grasp the significance of time and space relationships.

This phase of research, which William Warntz calls "macrogeography", represents a distinct break with conventional microscopic descriptive aerial studies that have characterized geographic research in the United States for many years. This book is dedicated to the premise that there has long been a "fallacy of composition in American geography." Warntz feels that the existing notion that a mosaic of microscopic aerial economic studies covering the United States would produce a valid picture of the American economy as a space-occupying system will be overcome by the adoption of a macroscopic point of view and the recognition of distance as a basic dimension. A macroscopic geography, recognizing that an economic system exists in a space (time) continuum and consists of integrated units, coordinated by interdependence and having a functional consistency and an organize unity greater than the sum of its parts, is within the reach of modern economic geographers. Toward a Geography of Price is an important start in that direction.

This particular study covers the United States production by states of four crops in the decade 1940-49. Using the geographic center of each of the forty-eight states, the author has worked out 2,304 distance relationships and, over the decade, 156 time relationships. In addition he has produced space potentials from income-weighted population figures. Using standard mathematical procedures, he puts these figures to the test and finds reason to advance his original hypothesis to theory. The entire study is presented with remarkable compactness and clarity that will hold the attention of geographers, economists, econometricians, and the serious reader interested in the economic phenomena of our day.