Attendance as a Negative Function of Distance, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Campgrounds

INTRODUCTION. The number of studies dealing with the principle of least effort or the distance-decay concept are numerous. Von Thiinen, in his famous work, examined the relationship between the intensity of agricultural land use and distance. (1 ) Clark discovered that urban popula­ tion densities decline in a negative exponential manner with increasing distance from an urban center in both the time and space dimensions. (2) Berry investigated the population density gradients of western and nonwestern cities and found that in general the negative exponential rule was valid. (3) Bogue demonstrated that rural-farm population densities decline with increasing distance from cities in the United States. (4 ) Morrill and Pitts used various curve fitting techniques to analyze relations between distance and different types of movement. In all cases the general trend of the curves was declining with increasing distance. (5 ) Browning evaluated land use in the Chicago area, and the use of the distance-decay concept enabled him to make generalizations about various land use categories. (6 )