The Concept of Dominance and World-Organization

The spatial distribution of human beings and institutions is not accidental. On the contrary, it is a product of evolution and represents a dynamic functional interrelationship in which the units are organized around centers or points of dominance. The pattern is not unlike that of the living organism, which, as Professor Child points out, is a vital integration of organs, cells, and tissues, functioning in harmony with a center of dominance. Moreover, human like biological evolution reveals an ongoing tendency toward a more specialized and refined relation between the center of dominance and the subordinate integrated parts. The development of communications is rapidly transforming the world from the small, undifferentiated, symmetrical unit of spatial distribution into the highly centralized and specialized axiated pattern. This type of pattern, which originated in the Western Hemisphere, is now penetrating the Orient and the primitive life of the tropics. Thus both old and new regions of the world are coming under the influence of the great urban centers of Europe and America. The change in spatial distribution effected in the village and urban communities of Asia is the basis of much of the present unrest. The fringe of Asia is today an economic frontier of the Western world, but gradually new centers of dominance are emerging, such as Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, and Bombay, which are beginning to disturb the equilibrium of the Western centers. The world is fast becoming a closed region organized on the axiated pattern, in which centers and routes are gaining precedence over boundaties and political areas as points of interest in spatial distribution.

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