Different from Christallers Southern Germany, the Estonian model included also
very small centres (alev and alevik), some of which were parish centres with a church, a
school, a tavern, a market, a shop and some other services. Most of them, however, were
even smaller having just few service enterprises. The number of small centres was
accordingly 26 (alev, 500-2000 inh.) and 130 (alevik, with less than 500 inh., actually,
smallest local centres had just more than 20 inhabitants) (Kant 1935, 182-4).
Edgar Kant’s approach was, indeed, less abstract. He did not use hexagonal
modelling. On the other hand, it was instantly applied in practice. Estonia introduced the
first scientifically designed central place theory based reformation of the first tier
administrative units (communities) on in the World 1938-1939 (Krepp 1938).
The ideas of Christaller and his follower’s, like Edgar Kant (1935) and August
Losch (1940/1955), were rediscovered at the end of 1950s and applied for the interest of
post-war quantitative geography (Johnston et al 1984), regional science as a new discipline
(Isard, 19??). Central Place Theory, an ideal hexagonal economic and service landscape of
Christallers model, became a creed of extensively spreading regional planning doctrine (see
e.g. Perroux 1955, Friedmann and Alonso 1964) and aimed to resolve rising urban and
regional problems (Hall 1974) resulting from high growth and rapid urbanisation.
However, according to Cooke (1983, 17), this period appeared to be a sort of
confused mixture of rationalism and positivism. He (ibid.) continues:
The worst ... has developed by inducing the assumption that planning solutions should give primacy
to the achievement of certain ideal principles rather than being based on thorough knowledge of the
mechanisms giving rise to the surface problems, which can be empirically identified.
Behavioural and system analyses, coming into the planning discussion later, demonstrate
well the weaknesses of positivist epistemology (Cooke 1984, 31 -32).
The energy crisis and rising environmental consciousness of the 1970s, ongoing
globalisation and following de- industrialisation of the 1980s demolished piece-by-piece the
planning doctrine built on the basement of Keynesian economics and theoretical-
geometrical geography. Planning theorists like Friedmann, Alonso and others, who applied
central place and growth pole theories, were heavily criticised.
This was simultaneous ly the start of a new era in planning based on humanist (Tuan
1976, Buttimer 1979), structuralist (Giddens 1984) and so-called bottom up approaches
(Stohr and Taylor 1981). The economic landscape was no longer described as a flat and