you added to your biblio:

>Smith, Michael E.
>1979 The Aztec marketing system and settlement pattern in the
>Valley of Mexico:  a central place analysis. American Antiquity
>44(1):110-125.


I was assigned to do a critique of Mike Smith's central place application
for one of my classes at SUNY Albany.  I trashed it considerably, and got
good marks on the work.  At the end of the class the prof, Gary Wright,
informed me that I would have the opportunity to meet the author at an
upcoming luncheon.  The appointed day arrived and I introduced myself to
Mike (who was soon to become the newest faculty member) and he said he had
heard that I had torn his work apart!  Yikes!  He then continued that when
he wrote it he was a fresh student, had done considerable research since
then, and agreed that, in light of what he had since learned, the paper was
worthy of criticism!

Because of that paper, and his candid response to my (and his) recognition
of its weaknesses, I have always kept CPT in my mind when doing my own
historical research.  I may not cite settlement patterns as being of the
tenets of CPT, or say that CPT is at work, but I do keep the basic
assumptions of CPT in mind.

Note that it is not a matter of distance, but of "friction" that is
important to spacing of settlements.  10 miles may be indicated on the map,
but if the travel choices presented are a 15 mile trip through a
treacherous mountainous pass or a 50 mile river float, the river wins.  I
lived that every day trying to commute from Campus to the NYS Museum, the
routes were the snaking highway to downtown and my parking spot (10
minutes) or the straight as an arrow city streets (45 minutes just to downtown)

         Dan W.