ABSTRACT
The efficiency of a city's spatial organization is determined by the organization of its central, area. Today, in most cities of developing countries, a peculiar but more fundamental problem of central area development that affect majority of the people and the town's growth is lack of efficiency due to poor locational pattern and functional linkages. This study explores the possibility of using the trends in the development of the central area functions in Gombe as a basis for effective planning of the town's central area. The main emphasis is on improving the pattern of central area development. It first discuses the concept, growth and approaches to central area planning. This is followed by a detailed study of the development pattern of the central area functions from 1963 to 1998. The nearest neighbour analysis give a value of 0.374 for 1963, 1.060 for 1973, 1.080 for 1983 and 1.20 for 1998. The study found out that the emerging pattern is dispersed. The dispersal is significant at 0.05 level in 1998. Therefore, a realistic planning approach is recommended to create order in the development of the central area. As part of the recommendations, the study also came out with design proposal for one of the proposed sites of the central area of Gombe.