Translating space: The rise and fall of central place theory and planning-geography in Sweden

Abstract

This chapter explores the emergence and eventual decline of a distinctive kind of planning-oriented human geography in post-war Sweden and the closely related adaptation of Walter Christaller's central place theory by geographers such as Torsten Hagerstrand and Sven Godlund. The rapidly expanding Swedish welfare state gave rise to a demand for skills and expertise of a kind many geographers were eager to provide, and Christaller's abstract framework allowed them to position themselves as producers of socially useful knowledge. Eventually, however, several voices raised concerns about how the focus on planning and the dominance of reductive theories such as central place theory constrained the academic development of the discipline. The end of the expansive phase of the welfare state also decreased the demand for the expertise geographers had provided. In essence, the popularity of central place theory was tethered to a particular historical moment, and it only allowed for rather narrow analyses of socio-spatial relations. Nonetheless, the theory played a key role in the transformation of Swedish human geography into a modern social science, insofar as the comparatively novel understanding of space it provided contributed to the development of more complex and philosophical theories and approaches to geography.