Territorial justice and service allocation.

Discusses the origins of geographical studies of service provision and examines the conclusions that emerge from empirical research, and explanations for variations in levels of service provision based on pluralism, managerialism and structuralism. Attention is then given to the definition of public services and the concept of need. Themes for future research are identified including examination of particular services in order to derive better indices of needs, service quality and outcomes. It is concluded that a major obstacle to attaining an adequate explanation for spatial variations in service provision and well being is the multitude of factors and agencies at work, and that a useful starting point is to recognise the underlying importance of scale.-from Editor