Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Many analysts have identified a basic trade-off
between the 'attractiveness' or 'size' of a potential
retail destination and the 'friction of distance'
involved in travelling there. This notion underlies
the family of spatial interaction approaches,
including the so-called 'gravity' and 'retail
potential' models. (Haynes and Fotheringham
1984; Fotheringham and O'Kelly 1989; Brown
1992b; Huff and Black 1997).
The retail potential model is probably the most
widely used in the context of predicting aggregate
consumer choice of shopping opportunity. It is
based upon the following assumptions (Huff 1962;
Lakshmanan and Hansen 1965):
size and distance factors mentioned. This is
clearly incorrect in a society in which tastes and
preferences vary from one person to another.
•
The model assumes that all consumers within
the region concerned have the same choice
set. In practice, consumers will ignore many
possible shopping opportunities, on grounds
of ignorance, antipathy or problems of access.
These criticisms have led to the development of
more complex 'choice models', which can
incorporate several characteristics of shopping
opportunities and consumers. Among these are the
family of 'decompositional multi-attribute
preference models' developed in the Netherlands
by Timmermans (1984: see also Timmermans and
Golledge 1990). These allow for competitive
factors in a manner similar to the retail potential
model, but they can simulate the effects of a wider
range of determinants of shopping destination
choice and more complex structures of
comparison of destinations and trade-offs between
attributes of those destinations.
•
The larger in size the shopping opportunity,
the more likely the shopper is to choose it.
The relationship between choice probability
and size may be linear or non-linear.
•
The closer the shopping opportunity is to the
shopper's home, the more likely the shopper
is to choose it. The relationship between
choice probability and distance (or travel cost)
is non-linear.
•
The likelihood of choosing any one shopping
opportunity is affected by the size and relative
location of all other shopping opportunities
within the consumer's 'choice set'. In effect,
the consumer, while considering the trade-off
between size and distance for any one centre,
simultaneously considers the trade-offs for all
other centres in the choice set.
Hierarchies of retail areas and shopping
centres: how is retailing spatially
organised?
The third set of basic relationships lies in the
spatial disposition of retail opportunities within
urban areas. Although some stores such as large
food stores can function adequately in isolated
sites, most store types benefit from clustering with
other stores, either of the same broad type or of
different types. Here we encounter some problems
of definition. This author takes the view that a
cluster of retail outlets that has grown gradually
over time and is in multiple ownership should be
called a 'retail area' (see Plate 33.2). A group of
outlets built at the same time and under one
ownership should be called a 'shopping centre'.
The term 'town centre' defines the part of a
town's central area that is devoted mainly to
retailing and other consumer services: it may
include both retail areas and shopping centres.
Many geographers have studied spatial
patterns of retail and business areas within urban
Although widely used in practice, this formulation
has been extensively criticised. Three broad
criticisms can be mentioned here:
•
The model usually assumes that all consumers
within the region concerned make identically
structured trade-offs between shopping centre
size and distance, and take competition into
account in a similar way. Differences in choice
of destination are thus simply a reflection of
consumers' home locations. This assumption
is clearly erroneous in a society in which
mobility varies from one person to another.
•
The model fails to take into account any
determinants of consumer choice other than the
