[1] Weber supported reintroducing theory and causal models to the field of economics, in addition to using historical analysis.

[citation needed] Leaning heavily on work developed by the relatively unknown Wilhelm Launhardt, Alfred Weber formulated a least cost theory of industrial location which tries to explain and predict the locational pattern of industry at a macro scale.

(Besides mining, other primary activities (or extractive industries) are considered material oriented: timber mills, furniture manufacture, most agricultural activities, etc.. Often located in rural areas, these businesses may employ most of the local population.

In 1971, Luc-Normand Tellier[2] found the first direct (non iterative) numerical solution of the Fermat and Weber triangle problems.

Long before Von Thünen's contributions, which go back to 1818, the Fermat point problem can be seen as the very beginning of space economy.

In the same book, Tellier solved that problem for the first time in the triangle case, and he reinterpreted spatial economics theory, especially, the theory of land rent, in the light of the concepts of attractive and repulsive forces stemming from the attraction-repulsion problem.

That problem was later further analyzed by mathematicians like Chen, Hansen, Jaumard and Tuy (1992),[4] and Jalal and Krarup (2003).