Analysis of Current Issues in Honolulu According to supply and Demand
What is Spatial Interaction?
In the 1960s Kingsley Davis stated that a city develops over time as a result of migration from rural areas into the urban centers (Davis 1965). This theory came during the tail end of the industrial age in western civilization when there still existed a discernable economic and cultural distinction between these two types of socio-economic regions. Since the advent of the information revolution and subsequently the service industry based economy the previous clear lines separating urban from rural have become increasingly difficult to delineate. In this complex age of ‘urban villagers’ occupying the ‘counter urbanized’ megalopolis, the lines of separation disappear. To make sense of the confusion, economists, urban geographers, and city planners use the concept of spatial interaction as guide through the maze of economic, cultural and social symbiosis between and around urban centers (Carter 1995).
The term ‘spatial interaction’ refers to how urban centers impact the social and economic trends of their immediate geographic sphere of influence based upon localized curves of supply and demand. A number of different social physics models, which are based upon the French academic tradition of the physiocrats have been presented over the last two decades to attempt to simplify and quantify the social complexities of urbanization (Hartshorn 1996). This paper will first present the geographic features in and around Honolulu, Hawai’i that have shaped its spatial interaction with the rest of the island of Oahu. Based upon the interdependence of these geographic features with the flows of people and commerce through the island, I will discuss first, how Reily’s Law of Retail Gravitation can be used to analyze how tourism in the city of Honolulu impacts the totality of Oahu’s transportation system. Second, I will then discuss how George Kingsley Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort can be applied to the suburban transformation of Oahu’s agricultural resources. Although the implications of Honolulu’s tourism industry and suburban sprawl permeate on a global scale, for the purposes of this paper, I will only be discussing their effects within Oahu (Hartshorn 1996).
The Influence of Honolulu’s Geographic Features
The City of Honolulu is located on the island of Oahu, the fifth main island in the Hawaiian archipelago. This archipelago represents the exposed features of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount mountain range that reaches as far north and west as the Aleutian Trench (seen in Figure 1). On Oahu, Honolulu is located on the coastal plain of the southern coast of Oahu because it contains the greatest concentration of easily habitable land, has direct access to the pacific ocean, and features both Honolulu Harbor and Pearl Harbor; two highly defensible and economically viable features. The rest of the island, with the exception of central Oahu, which has been historically used for agriculture, is covered by mountainous ridges and valleys (See Figures 2-4). It is the system of ridges and valleys, and the shape of the shoreline that has guided the development of the island since it was first colonized. These features, and a culture that promotes a degree of natural preservation, has forced major arterials and residential developments to be built in certain places, while other areas are left untouched.
Analysis of Riley's Law of Retail Gravitation
The tourism industry in the state of Hawaii is a major source of tax revenue for the local government. In 2012, Hawaii received over eight million visitors to its shores. These tourists brought with them approximately 9 billion dollars in revenue. The Honolulu International Airport is the only major hub on the Hawaiian archipelago. Be that a vast majority of the visitors come through Honolulu on their way to neighboring islands, Honolulu also benefits from any revenue generated in the airport or between flights. In addition, as we will discuss later in this paper, humans follow the path of least effort. Therefore, as the hub is in Honolulu, the majority of the tourists end up staying either within Honolulu itself, or at least on the island of Oahu for the entirety of their trip's duration. Therefore, it is no wonder that Honolulu has invested so much into creating a vibrant and diverse tourism market.
Honolulu's tourism industry has been a driving force in the city’s local economy ever since the Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened alongside the Waikiki beach (Kuykendall 1926). As a result Honolulu contains a myriad of tourism nodes that feature the city's rich military history, natural beauty, and retail opportunities. Where the major attractions in Honolulu primarily cater to the off island tourist, I was curious to see what the levels of attraction would be for a local resident of Oahu coming into the city for a day. I wanted to test that attraction against the gravitational pull than that of a 'quieter' north shore attraction like the Banzai Pipeline.
In testing the Reily's Law of Retail Gravitation I have chosen the Banzai Pipeline along the famous northern shore of Oahu and the beautiful and diverse Hanauma Bay in eastern part of the city of Honolulu. As part of exploring Reily's Law of Retail Gravitation I am trying to determine the geographic location of the so-called 'breaking-point' (Hartshorn 1996). This point is the place in space in which based on the level of attraction to either entertainment node, a decision to go to one or the other is reached on a 50/50 margin. My hypothesis is that the town of Wahiawā, HI will serve as a good node for testing the feasibility of this study because it lies equidistant from the western part of Honolulu and the north shore of Oahu (Nahoopii, et al. 2012).
Instead of using standard population for the mass part of the equation, I have used the average daily visitation rates for Hanauma Bay (3000 daily visitors) on the eastern side of Honolulu, and the Banzai Pipeline (1000 daily visitors) on the fabled North Shore of Oahu (Nahoopii, et al. 2012). These two nodes, when traveling along the Oahu's highway system are 48miles from one another. When we plug our distances and populations into the equation we are be able to extrapolate how far the breaking point is from Wahiawā in either direction of these two relevant water destinations. With the numbers plugged into the Reily's Law equation [BP = d/1+SQRT(P1/P2)] we find the appropriate breaking point to be 17.56 miles from the Banzai Pipeline, and conversely 30.43miles from Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Park. Wahiawā, HI just so happens to be 16 miles from the Banzai Pipeline and 32 miles from Hanauma Bay. It would appear that my hypothesis was all but accurate (Hartshorn 1996).
The take away from this analysis is twofold. First Wahiawā, would be an excellent spot to locate a bi-coastal tourism office because, the pull to the sparsely populated north shore is equal to that of the pull to the heavily populated south shore. Second, the feasibility of living in Wahiawā and commuting to Honolulu is high because of the short distance relative to the high amount of attraction. This so much so that if you aggregate the attraction of Waikiki and Pearl Harbor with that of Hanauma Bay, the Breaking Point will be only five miles south of the Banzai Pipeline. With all of this said, it should be noted that these numbers are slightly skewed because the transit system currently in place does not travel as the crow flies. This is due to the massive nature preserve in the mountains that run along the entirety of Oahu's east coast.
Analysis of George Kingsley Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort
Between 1940 and 1990 the population of Honolulu more than doubled, starting at 179,330 in 1940 and reaching 376,937 by 1990 (Harris 2004). As a result of this expanding population, land that had been previously designated as agricultural began to be repurposed for new suburban subdivisions. One of the original towns in which this took place was Wahiawā, HI. Wahiawā was the original location of the Dole Pineapple plantation, and when the plantation shut down, the transportation, sanitation, and utility infrastructure was already in place allowing for the expansion of the rural settlement into a sprawling suburban development (Kuykendall 1926). The trend of repurposing agricultural land in central Oahu and changing it in suburban bedroom communities for an ever sprawling primate city of Honolulu continues into the present. In this paper I postulate that the reasoning behind this is most closely related to the three behavioral concepts present in George Kingsley Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort. These concepts are: (1) complimentarity; (2) intervening opportunity; and (3) transferability (Hartshorn 1996).
The George Kingsley Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort as in all of spatial interaction, is based upon the theory of supply and demand. This is especially true in its complimentarity concept. In terms of the Oahu example, the incredible population increase resulted in a shift in the supply/demand curve which created a seller's market. Operating in this market, construction companies quickly took this moment to create an 'intervening opportunity' for the buyers in the market by creating an "alternative source of supply" so that no one would not be entirely priced off the island. In order to do this the developers used what was untapped and freshly rezoned residential land in the old agricultural fields, which were further from the city center as well as the water (two highly desirable traits in Honolulu real estate) (Hartshorn 1996).
With the addition of twice the amount of people over a 40 year period, and a transportation infrastructure that is failing at best, congestion has begun to play a major role in the decision making of both private citizens and policy makers. As congestion continues to increase the demand for what is the only area of land that is safe to develop on becomes less and less tangible. It is for this reason, among many that the planners and policy makers at the municipal and region level have pushed through a bill to create a light rail system in western Honolulu that will both mitigate congestion and hopefully reinvigorate the demand for more residential development (Hartshorn 1996).