Structural Models of Retail Distribution

Analogies with Settlement and Urban Land-Use Theories

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8962032
AutoresR L Davies (0000-0002-3324-4824)
Ano1972
Fascículo57
Páginas59-59
Data de publicação1972-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/621554
OpenAlexW2326737480
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas3

Many descriptions of the structure of retailing at both the regional and urban scale refer to concepts which have originally been formulated in connection with settlement and general land-use studies. This is epitomized in the extension of central place theory, and particularly the notion of the hierarchy, to distinguish structural size-orders in the relative importance of shopping centres. In addition, there is a strong similarity in the nature of those classifications which have been made about types of settlements, general land-use forms, and different retail configurations. While distinct similarities may be found in the methods of these studies, however, in certain important respects parallel lines of enquiry that might have been expected have not been undertaken. There has been little attempt, for example, to relate the locational characteristics of shopping centres to theoretical postulates about urban land-use patterns. This paper reviews the extent to which analogies have been drawn, and may subsequently be developed, between various conceptual models of general human occupance and tertiary activity. DESCRIPTION of retail patterns in recent years has been distinctive in three respects. First, it has been strongly associated with the quantitative movement and development of theory in the spatial sciences; secondly, it has been consistently related to the study of broader settlement and urban land-use patterns; thirdly, it has been mainly developed in the context of American cities and consumer shopping habits. These features are not difficult to understand. Retailing data are quite readily available in published or survey form, lending themselves to numerical measurement, and they can relatively easily be generalized in model terms. Likewise, because shops are widely distributed in rural and urban systems alike, a spatial equation of supply and demand is realized and common locational constraints identified for the centres providing retail goods and their areas of consumption. In the United States in particular, there has been active enquiry into the theory of retail patterns and, at the empirical level, tremendous changes in the retail system are seen to be taking place. The prevailing approach to retail description may be illustrated by the following examples. From studies of shopping facilities in urban areas, B. J. L. Berry was able to identify a hierarchy of retail centres which closely resembled the hierarchy of central places in rural areas, and then advance a general theory of tertiary activity to account for both (Berry, W. L. Garrison et al., 1959). In addition, in central place studies as a whole, scholars have long used retailing data as criteria by which the concept of centrality and a rank sequence of hierarchical orders for settlements may be defined (W. K. D. Davies, I966). In planning applications, the notion of a hierarchy has long provided a conceptual basis for the organization and control of shopping centres inside urban areas (W. Burns, 1959); more lately, in the greater attention to the theory of general interaction, future expansion of shopping facilities is predicted and allocated using sub-models of a gravity-potential kind

Business · Distribution (mathematics · Economic geography · Geography · Settlement (finance · Consumer Retail Behavior Studies · Mathematics