German Roots of Regional Science

Walter Isard is the founder of the post-war tradition of Regional Science. He dates the birth of this tradition back to 1944 when he became familiar with the German literature on location. Based on these studies, he published his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper The General Theory of Location and Space-Economy and later his famous book Location and Space-Economy. The present paper reassesses the German contributions. Starting from von Thunen it rushes through the history of thought until the 1930s of the last century. The paper agrees with Isard’s emphasis on the fundamental insights offered by the German authors, but tries to revise some conventional wisdom about the German tradition. In particular, it argues that the so-called historical school offers more to learn from today than it is usually thought, while Weber, probably the most celebrated German spatial economist after von Thunen, chose a methodological approach that turned out not to be fruitful for later research. Finally, the paper explicitly dissents from Isard’s praise of Weigmann who, for good reasons, is now completely forgotten.