Applied Geography 28 (2008) 168–188 An exploration of spatial dispersion, pattern, and association of socio-economic functional units in an urban system Soe W. Myint à School of Geographical Sciences, Arizona State University, 600 E. Orange St., SCOB Bldg Rm330, Tempe, AZ 85287-0104, USA Abstract Hypotheses based on a set of socio-economic, cultural, and political functional units are examined. The geographic techniques employed in the study include spatial mean, standard distance, standard deviational ellipse, nearest neighbor analysis, and spatial analysis on a network: cross K function and network cross K function. The study not only explores the spatial pattern, distribution, and association of key socio-economic, cultural, and political units which could reveal internal structures and activities of an urban system, but also demonstrates a number of operational procedures that permit applications of traditional and advanced spatial analysis approaches in the study of real urban systems. r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Spatial pattern; Spatial association; Network; Functional units Introduction A typical city normally performs a wide variety of social, economic, cultural, and political functions. However, the terms social, economic, cultural, and political are not completely independent; they intersect and interrelate. The magnitude, growth, and diversity of services required by an urban population are products of the physical expansion of urban socio-economic functional units and the growing functional complexity of urban system. As the above services are provided by various commercial, social, and governmental organizations, their spatial distributions and patterns, associated functional characteristics, and centrality and orientation of spatial units may also differ notably. The examination of where different activities are located within a city, how they are related, and what generalizations can be made about their spatial patterns and arrangements is an important step towards understanding internal activities, interaction among functional units, and growth and development in an urban system. The nature of urbanization and its associated urban forms are generally related to the characteristics and extent of national economic development. Countries with strong economies at the forefront of economic advancement are likely to have urban systems and problems dominated by the need to accommodate growth while maintaining the quality of the urban environment. Thus, an explicitly economic perspective is fundamental to an appreciation of the functional characteristics of urban areas at spatial scales ranging from ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog 0143-6228/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2008.02.005 à Tel.: +1 480 965 6514; fax: +1 480 965 8313. E-mail address: Soe.Myint@asu.edu