A Big City as an Independent Central Place System, a Case Study of Moscow

Abstract

The paper studies a big city as an independent central place system. For this purpose, the author has developed and tested a methodology for quantitative assessment of central functions based on an integrated set of the most important socioeconomic indicators. This methodology helped to prove the possibility of not only measuring the value of central functions in different parts of a big city, but also of determining the affiliation of all the system’s elements with different hierarchical levels or a service area. The study was based on the model of Moscow’s central place system. The study evaluated how the factor of the Russian capital’s considerable territorial expansion has influenced the dynamics of its central place system from 2009 to 2015. We have found that there is a strong interrelation between Moscow’s radial–circular structure and a relatively uniform reduction in the value of central functions with increasing distance from the city center, which is disturbed by the largest highways, which concentrate a significantly higher value of the key factor compared with neighboring elements.