The theory of metropolitan expansion: a reexamination.

Examines the ecological theory of metropolitan expansion, particularly Hawley's assertion that the size of the urban community expands by virtue of concentrating administrative functions within its centres. Provides evidence which contradicts this explanation, and proposes an alternative, articulated from a Marxian tradition. It asserts that the explanation for events which take place in settlement space comes from the ways in which the present mode of social organization operates to produce environmental patterns; it focuses on the interconnections between the economy, the states, class struggle and the global integration of the world system.- from Author