directly across the landscape to the market, as no roads or pathways exist. In order
to market their crops, all farmers must deliver them in acceptable condition, mean-
ing that any part of the harvest that is spoiled or stale cannot be marketed and has
no value. Each farmer must pay for transport of his goods, and this cost is directly
proportional to the distance from the market. Finally, everyone in the system is
assumed to be motivated to maximize their profits and has the ability to switch
to crops that are more profitable if that option is available.
Under these conditions, transportation costsbecome a major consideration in
determining the margin of profit, and von Thunen argued that a series of concentric
zones would emerge around the central market node. Each of these zones or rings
would specialize in the production of specific commodities, based on the transporta-
tion cost of delivering them to market. The innermost zone would feature production
of commodities that had relatively high market value, but which must be transported
to market quickly due to their tendency to spoil quickly, and thus lose their eco-
nomic value. Fresh vegetables and dairy farming for milk would be found in this
zone, according to von Thunen. At some distance from the market center, however,
increased transportation cost due to greater distance and losses due to spoiled prod-
ucts would force farmers located there to switch to producing an alternative com-
modity. This threshold distance marks the next zone moving outward from the
market node. In von Thunen’s original scheme, this second zone of production
would be characterized by the production of firewood, which was the main source
of fuel at the time. Firewood had a high demand and could be profitably transported
greater distance than milk or vegetables because it could be carried in bulk and did
not lose any value due to spoilage or damage. Subsequent zones grew various grains,
and the final zone was a region of cattle ranching. Beyond theboundariesmarking
this outermost zone there was only unused land, because the transport costs to the
marketplace were so great that no commodity could be produced profitably. The
production zones thus created would appear as bands of rings circling the market
node—economic geographers call these the von Thunen rings.
The model von Thunen proposed offers a means of determining the value of the
land located in each ring of production. Von Thunen labeled this value “locational
rent,” but some economic geographers use the term “land rent.” This value can be
determined by the formula R = V−(E + T), where R represents the “rent” or value
of the land; V is the price the commodity produced on the land brings in the market;
E equals the production costs on the farm; and T is the total transport cost. From
this mathematical formulation, one can quickly ascertain that transport costs are
the key geographical variable—as production is located at an increasing distance
from the market, thereby increasing transport costs, the locational rent declines
until a point is reached where the commodity being marketed can no longer be
produced at a profit. This point marks the boundary of each von Thunen ring.356 Von Thunen Model