1018 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 2§ 
tions and must be obtained at local nodes; 2) a large fraction 
of such information is visible to local people; and 3) the visi- 
bility to non-local people of such information on a local node 
rapidly falls off with distance from that node? If so, can we 
conclude that the greater the distance a decision-making point 
s from a given local node, the greater the volume of informa- 
tion on that node and its tributary area which must be formally 
collected and put in explicit form, ceteris paribus? Can we 
hypothesize that for decisions on a representative concrete issue 
or set of concrete issues cost component a) is some monotonic- 
ally increasing function of the degree of spatial centralization 
as suggested by the curve of Figure 4? (9). 
Dollars 
Cost 
Component 
yey 
Jagree 
———— 
. . . ! 0 0 
vabal Centrabization 
Frc 
Cost component b): When no slack facilities, labor and 
other resources exist, and when inputs are costed in full at 
prevailing rents and wage rates, do major scale economies 
obtain in processing and beneficiating information? For pro- 
cessing a given volume of information associated with decisions 
on a concrete issue or set of concrete issues, can we hypothesize 
that cost component b) is some monotonically decreasing func- 
(5) In this function, should allowance be made for the likelihood that 
important information pertaining to any f‘-order node and its tributary 
area may be more visible to a person at the f*-order node than to a person 
at an (f+ 1)" or higher order node? 
Note that the functions underlying the curve of Figure 4 and the curves 
of subsequent figures are taken to be continuous. In practice, they are 
likely to involve steps and other discontinuities. The argument. however 
remains unaffected 
12] Isard - pag. 16