Decentralization of Retailing in Britain: The Breaking of the Third Wave

RESEARCH ARTICLES Decentralization of Retailing in Britain: The Breaking of the Third Wave

Alan G. Hallsworth University of Portmouth A much anticipated explosion in regional shopping center retailing in Britain has failed to emerge. This paper suggests that the threat to existing property investments was a key reason why funds for development were slow to materialize. By the time the movement gathered pace, the British government became worried by the scale of proposals. Since the consumer boom that followed the expansionary budget of 1988 was short lived, it follows that many potential investors were relieved that they did not become involved with schemes that might have had little economic viability. Therefore, the rather restricted geography of retailing in Britain has been left largely unchanged. Key Words: retailing, regional shopping centers, Britain. decentralization.

Introduction

e general process of retail decentraliza- T tion in Britain has been extremely slow in comparison with trends in North America. This paper concentrates on decentralization associated with regional shopping centers (RSCs), a sector where the contrast between Britain and North America is most marked. Studies (e.g., Dent [I9851 on Atlanta) have pointed to the pressures on U.S. downtowns from encircling malls. This pattern is repeated elsewhere in the United States and Canada (for a comparison of the two see Goldberg and Mercer [1986]) where many hundreds of such malls now exist. No parallel situation exists in Britain, not least because, a t the time of this writing, the whole of Britain has just four large out-of-town RSCs. Concerns for equity and accessibility and the rigidity of the planning system have often been given as reasons for this slow decentralization process (Guy 1976, 1980; Davies 1977; Dawson 1980). Of late, however, evidence seems to be hinting that considerations of property values may also have been a vital factor in determining the pace of decentralization. This may come as no surprise to those North American readers who are familiar with the investor-led mall development schemes that sought tax shelters as much as trading opportunities. It was in 1984 that the British Chartered Surveyors were given this U.S. vision of how mall retailing might be operating: “syndicator . . . these are the H O T

H O T H O T ones . . . are paying outrageous prices. They are not really looking at the economics . . . they are looking at the shelter opportunities” (Hart 1984). Despite this ad- vice, the development process in Britain seems to have been led more by motivations to protect existing investments rather than to create vehicles for new ones.

Retail Decentralization ~~

Schiller (1986) suggested that the process of retail decentralization in Britain was occurring in three waves. This paper will briefly examine these three waves and pay special attention to the third. However, we must first ask a very basic question-from what established pattern has retail been decentralizing? Oddly, this is a very difficult question to answer definitively due to the paucity of reliable data on retail patterns. For this reason, it is usually found that the best way to contrast Britain with North America is to undertake city-by-city comparisons. The comparative work on Char- lotte, North Carolina, and Cardiff, capital of Wales, by Guy and Lord (1993) emphasized how strongly Britain contrasts with the United States. Their figures (1993, 91) suggested that the city center of Cardiff retained 70% of sales in general merchandise, apparel, and furniture in contrast with just 25% in Charlotte. Aggre- gate statistics on retailing in Britain are so poor, not least because the 1981 Census of Distribution was the last comprehensive survey

Professional Geographer, 46(3) 1994, pages 296-307 0 Copyright 1994 by hsoc~ation of American Geographers Initial submission, May 1993; revised submission, September 1993; final acceptance, October 1993.

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 IJF, UK.

Retailing in Britain 297

of its type and because much of the present retail provision postdates this. However, to generalize greatly, comparison goods or department store type merchandise (DSTM) have classically only been retailed from within the retail hierarchy of central businss districts (CBDs) down through neighborhood centers. The organization and pattern of property investment within British retailing has, therefore, been dominated by the “High Street.” Within this schema, largely akin to the nodal hierarchy found many years ago in Chicago by Berry (1963), food retailers found niches with high street supermarkets. The only genuinely suburban provision was found where expand- ing cities engulfed smaller, previously outlying, town centers with their own shopping provision. Some of these centers, boosted by growing population, became foci for substantial retail provision (see Gayler [1984] for a more extensive exposition).

We should bear in mind, however, that a further pattern of restraint was imposed by statutory protected “Green Belts” that had been imposed around many major conurba- tions as a reaction to excessive urban sprawl in the 1930s. Such historic precedents mean that there can be little reason to doubt the influence of planning in bolstering the British city center. It is the role of the well-developed and coordi- nated national planning system (with some dif- ferences for Wales and Scotland) to produce structure plans for all categories of land use, including retailing. The responsibility for plan formulation has, a t various times, passed from city regions to county councils but the ethos of restraint and rural protection has never wa- vered (Hall et al. 1973). Furthermore, all structure plans and the more detailed district level plans must be sent for scrutiny to the Depart- ment of the Environment (DOE). This office of central government has a role in final ap- proval of such plans and has the power to amend the proposals. It has also been a com- mon feature of British planning legislation that a potential developer whose proposal has been refused locally may appeal to the DOE in the hope of having the decision overturned. It is quite clear that the hand of central government is involved in matters of planning law that affect local areas. This situation contrasts strongly with the more circumscribed powers of the U.S. federal authorities to intervene in

matters of land use change. Only in very indi- rect means, such as requirements regarding en- vironmental impact or via funding initiatives, can federal authorities affect retail developments (though the rescue of the Bull RudManassas site [Garreau 1992, 402-221 might suggest otherwise).

The spectrum of local planning powers in the United States spans a range far wider than that in Britain and defies generalization here. If a single substantive contrast may be drawn with Britain, it lies in the fact that, a t present, the formulators of structure plans sit in offices a t county council level. These counties will probably have influence over more than one major city plus several small towns. Further- more, these planners can afford to see development as a zero sum game. They may feel that no net benefit to the total county-level system accrues if a development takes place in one area rather than another. This removes an element of the counter bidding for economic advantage via tax income that may ensue when U.S. lo- calities bid for a mall development.

It was from this highly nodalized and rather fossilized pattern that retailers began to seek what we can call noncentral or freestanding locations. From his vantage point as a retail market analyst, Schiller (1986) could see that Britain was poised for what he described as the “third wave.” This wave was to involve the development of suburban RSCs for which his organization was logging a record number of applications. In the mid-1980s there was a sudden and dramatic surge in the number of developers applying for planning permission to build full-scale RSCs. As geographers we find with hindsight that a number of interesting things have happened: the most striking is that the RSC wave never really occurred; the second is that some very familiar geographic tech- niques had been called upon in their defense; and the third is that the first wave (foodstores) is now being called into question.

First Wave

The first wave, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, concerned large, car-based freestanding foodstores. Such stores were either characterized as hypermarkets or superstores (Hallsworth 1988a, 1988b). The superstore generally sought sites close to established cen-

298 Volume 46, Number 3, August 1994

ters but where extensive parking could be found. The stores averaged 40,000 sq. ft. in size and were almost exclusively devoted to food. The hypermarket, more classically associated with France, sought larger, more peripheral sites where approximately 100,000 sq. ft. of floorspace could be accommodated. The latter found it harder to find suitable sites and faced more planning opposition-and so many fewer of them were built.

The large out-of-town foodstore was pio- neered in Britain by ASDA from the north of England. The firm’s success was due to an awareness of political aspects of the development process (Gransby 1984). It was also noted that this same process created a restricted and expensive market for land. This was confirmed in a study of Cardiff, Wales, and Charlotte, North Carolina, where Lord and Guy (1991) considered the case of Cardiff and found that “land price and planning control issues are inter-related” [my emphasis] (Lord and Guy 1991, 433). Of most relevance to this paper is the fact that the 1970s also saw the advent of statutory restrictions to control the development of the larger of such stores.

Gradually, however, the more modestly sized ASDA type of development, or superstore, gained acceptance and there are now in excess of 600 such stores in existence. Store developers also began to use gravity-type models of trade diversion or “impact” (Breheney et al. 1981; Breheney 1983; Beaumont 1988) in or- der to show that these stores were not going to cause devastation to existing centers, and they later used the models to accurately assess market share. It came to be accepted that foodstores did not cause downtown devastation; some argued that they eased congestion in the city center.

Second Wave

Despite the fact that it had taken almost a decade to convince planners that out-of-town food superstores did not detract from the sta- bility of whole town centers, the second wave took place very quickly. British planners much more readily accepted the exodus of the related nonfood format, dubbed as retail warehouses (Gibbs 1986; Scott 1989). ,4gain, these stores, usually in the size range of 10,000 to 40,000

sq. ft., took off-center sites and were sometimes located as strips or “parks.” Often like North American outlet malls in style and im- age when found in groups, these stores chose very low-cost, often prefabricated, shed-type buildings. To emphasize again, little opposition was forthcoming from planners to this further leakage of retail trade from established centers.

This second wave, initiated in the 1970s, is continuing to the present but with some market concentration and slowing of activity. Store types include carpets, toys, automotive, furniture, gardening, and home improvemend construction. A couple of reasons may be put forward to explain this lack of planning opposition. First, there was much less of a worry about “fairness.” It seemed to matter less that the poor or sick could not reach carpet stores. Secondly, the stores generated less traffic than foodstores and took up much less space. These schemes have been researched but evidence of adverse impact on town centers has been hard to find (Brown 1989; Bromley and Thomas 1989). In addition to hundreds of single, freestanding retail sheds, there were 202 groups, strips, or parks by the end of 1990.

Third Wave

This wave is arguably the most interesting one, not least because it arose and collapsed in the space of a few years. It was, however, not totally unprecedented-a gap in the shopping provision of northwest London was eventually filled by the 800,000 sq. ft. Brent Cross shopping center after approximately a quarter of a century of delay and frustration (Shepherd and Newby 1978).

Meantime, developers were compromising and fitting mall-type developments into sometimes unaccommodating city centers (Davies and Bennison 1978a; Guy and Lord 1993). The advantage of these locations was that planning permission was probable; the disadvantage was the problem of site accumulation. A key reason why these sometimes incongruous in-center developments were permitted was that they reinforced rather than destabilized the familiar British pattern of retail property investment based on high streets (Davies and Bennison 1978b). Property rental income is a favored


investment vehicle and the system is based not on turnover but on prime high street locations.

Tha tcherisrn Some observers sensed that the centralized location pattern of retailing might change with the election of the Thatcher government in 1979, perhaps towards more American-style outcomes (Gayler 1989; Lord 1985; Halls- worth 1990a). Pressure from market forces im- plied a dissonance between the attitudes of the Minister of State responsible for the planning system and those of grassroots planners who had opposed so much retail decentralization in the past. In one instance, Nicholas Ridley (then in control of planning as Secretary of State a t the DOE) declared market forces to be beyond his power; i.e., he claimed he could not control them. This was an important ad- mission because the planning system in Eng- land and Wales (Scotland being rather differ- ent) is blatantly politically influenced. Expec- tations of a market-led free-for-all had already been heightened by the creation, early in the Thatcher period, of enterprise zones (EZs) where planning constraints were largely re- moved (Sparks 1987; Hallsworth 1990b). Al- though EZs were expected to attract manufac- turing indusuy, a handful of local developers quickly realized that these locations would attract retailers. The magnet was the lack of planning controls-and usually retailers faced more controls than most. RSCs were quickly constructed in the planner-free EZs a t Gateshead in northeast England (Metro Cen- tre) and Dudley in the Midlands (Merry Hill).

It may have been these two breakthroughs that led others to believe that the planning floodgates were now open. Hard upon the heels of EZ successes came the raft of proposals for out-of-town RSCs. Some of the developers must have had good reason to believe that the planning rules really had changed for they even proposed malls in Green Belt locations. A rapid build-up of proposals for RSCs gave a strong indication that Britain might indeed be thrust into paralleling the experiences in North America some years previously (Shaw 1985; Dawson and Lord 1985; Jones and Simmons 1987). Only where specific in-town schemes were named in plans as “worthy of protection” did it seem that there was now much possibility

of enforcing restrictions on out-of-town developments.

Extent of the Third Wave Norris (1990, 1992) has given the most comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the third wave. His particular emphasis was that, yet again, geographers with their gravity models (Huff 1964; Lakshmanan and Hansen 1965; Wrigley 1988) had been called into action to assess impact. There is no doubt that these models were an important part of the planning decision process, though it can be argued that they merely served to show that the consult- ants using them were competent and thus be- lievable. Ultimately, the question of how much impact is acceptable is a political decision. The rapidly growing third wave soon was com- posed of 54 proposals in England and Wales (plus seven in Scotland). Indeed, as Norris put it, “some 46 RSCs were proposed between 1984 and 1987” (Norris 1992, 3 3 ) .

The EZ proposals led the way-with the Gateshead Metro Centre in 1984 containing over two million sq. ft. British academic researchers sensed a new field opening up and moved in to ask from where these new centers were deriving their trade (Howard 1986; OXIRM 1988, 1989; Oxford Retail Group 1989). Others asked how these centers con- trasted with the existing town center schemes with which they had been thrust into rivalry (Jones 1989; McGoldrick and Thompson 1992).

Yet, ultimately, the third wave came to virtually nothing (Hillier Parker Research 1986- 1992; Bubb and Husson 1988) even though Metro Centre and Merry Hill were soon followed by Meadowhall at Sheffield and Lake- side a t Thurrock, the latter east of London. At the time his research ended in 1992, Norris (1992, 94-95) had tabulated just 3 3 planning appeal decisions from the third wave (the EZ schemes did not need planning permission). Of these, only eight were immediately allowed; the Lakeside center at Thurrock in the under- shopped east side of London stands out as the one clearly successful development. However, a t least two or three other permitted centers will certainly not find the financial backing to proceed as full-scale RSCs. Sometimes the pull-out is total, perhaps on the grounds that

300 Volume 46, Number 3, A u p t 1994

another RSC is already trading nearby. In other cases (as at Cribbs Causeway near Bristol) the scheme will probably be scaled down dramati- cally so as not to be a true RSC a t all. The fact that developers are choosing not to pursue RSC schemes for which they have obtained those rare planning permissions is eloquent testimony to the effects of the present recession.

Very few of the 54 proposals for RSCs in England and Wales have survived. Figure 1 shows the pattern of total activity in the British RSC market by tabulating all individual proposals for RSCs, planning decisions on RSCs, or RSCs withdrawn from the planning system by their proposers. The peak in 1986 is made up mostly of “proposed” malls. The following two years represent planning delay. The year 1989 was the peak period for consideration of and refusal (or withdrawal) of the proposed schemes. Vitally, not one new RSC was even proposed after 1989. To summarize, at present it seems that there will be no more than five or six “pure” out-of-town RSCs built in Britain.

Politics and Planning It is important to examine how the political process handled the sudden influx of proposals. One impediment to a totally laissez-faire approach enforced from the top downwards is the reality of British politics. The Thatcher governments drew their political support dominantly from the affluent southern counties. These were the very areas most attractive to proposers of RSCs but where “not in my back yard” (NIMBY) attihides are also strong. Accordingly, political realities eventually de- manded that RSCs should be resisted in the Green Belt areas treasured by the most vocal of Conservative voters. Beyond that, the question remained as to what other grounds might be forwarded for refusal of RSC schemes; a written answer in the parliamentary record Hansard (1989, for example, had introduced the notion of cumulative impact.

Two subsequent policy decisions by the DOE are equally worthy of note, for these give some clues as to the true fate of the third wave-despite the expectations of a growth boom if retailing became more deregulated. One was the decision of 15 December 1986 to “call in” for central government scrutiny pro-

40 1 36

32

28

5 24 I

D 5 20 !s 2 16

12

8

4

c

z

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991

Year

Figure 1: The changing levels of activity in the regional shopping center sector in Britain: number of proposals, refusals, and withdrawals of schemes (after Norris 1992).

posals in excess of 250,000 sq. ft. This new policy was not necessarily a blow to the developers since some of them might expect a more sympathetic hearing from the DOE than from certain local planning authorities. However, as things worked out, the delaying tactics were important, as was the gradual realization that for every group of proposals in a geographic area, there would probably be just one chosen winner (Stocks 1989). This in itself caused the developers to wonder which proposal might be the successful one. Was it going to be worth- while proceeding with expensive preparations if a rival obviously had the better site?

For the developers, a second policy statement was far more serious: Guidance Note PPG6 of 20 January 1988 (Department of the Environment and Welsh Office 1988). The guidance note stated that planners should take account of forecasts of retail expenditure, which is itself a minefield (Hallsworth 1988b), but should not attempt to set rigid floorspace limits. Most important though, was this:

Proposals for such developments, which may be well over 100,000 sq. ft. and up to 1 million sq. ft. or more (10,000-100,000 sq. m) have no place in the Green Belt . . . Nor are developments on that scale generally acceptable in the open countryside. [my emphasis]


Since Green Belts are usually well-defined, it was the latter part of the above statement that defined the battleground-what was “open countryside”? At the root of this planning climb-down (Hallsworth 1991) was the particular matter of the elections to the European Community in which the Green Party polled a million votes and achieved no seats. The British government suddenly felt the need to appear “Green” in outlook-hence a sudden conversion to the priority of conserving pleas- ant open space.

Of particular interest was the refusal of permission for the Runnymede Center at Wrays- bury, Berkshire, to the west of London. Here a refusal was based on infringement of the Green Belt-despite the fact that the site was a redundant gravel pit close to Heathrow Air- port (URPI 1989). Overall, the scale of refusals was such that Lee (1989) was able to speculate that the third wave had broken. Norris declared that only “fourteen of the sixty-one third wave centres proposed in the 1980s are either open or under construction or have planning permission” (Norris 1992, 68) and noted that the smallest category of all was those centers that were actually open.

It seemed that, in southern England a t least, the Green Belt policy was the last line of planning refusal, with the more nebulous concept of “open countryside” inviting arguments over definitions. But the question remains as to why the retail property development industry was not furious with its market-liberalizing government for its actions in delaying and in many cases refusing planning permission. The answer, arguably, was not hard to find. Lakeside was not the only mall proposal to be approved in principle-Blue Water Park in the under- served area east of London was not actually refused. Yet that mall was long delayed and is only now being built. Time has shown that, as a result of the delays built into the planning system, the economic buoyancy upon which so many malls were predicated has, in fact, evapo- rated. The aftermath of the inflationary spending spree ignited by extensive tax cuts, the so- called “Lawson boom” in Britain (Hallsworth 1992), has left many developers insolvent. This problem also applies to office property, and the developers no longer want the planning permissions. Retail property analysts are privately very relieved that the market has not been

flooded with even more surplus floorspace. They point out that, while the RSCs faced delays, many in-town malls went ahead. Some of these still have very few tenants.

There is srructural over supply relative to present recession-hit conditions. As Norris ob- served of the third wave schemes, “These schemes were developer-led, but they failed to attract much interest from the financial institutions . . . only the risk-taking banks have been prepared to invest in these RSC proposals” (Norris 1992, 68). Had the government permitted all 61 schemes without any market regu- lation, then the RSCs would have caused not just floorspace over supply but also financial mayhem. The British retail property investment market is dominated by a handful of major institutions with existing retail developments in city centers. It is easy to see why they would not risk undermining these investments by backing expensive out-of-town RSC developments that might not succeed. The long lead-times for the RSC proposals would have brought them all on stream in time for the current economic downturn; thus, avoiding the investment in them was certainly wise. It indeed appears that other established influences played a part as Saunders (1985) had warned:

The impact that [RSCs] will have upon existing High Streets is difficult to predict . . . The attitudes of the local authorities and the degree to which they act . . . to retain infrastructure investment and to protect their high rate [local tax] income is a highly-relevant consideration (Saun- ders 1985, 7 2 ) .

This was reinforced by Guy and Lord in their work comparing Charlotte, North Carolina, with Cardiff. Of Cardiff they wrote:

the city council and county council have consis- tently opposed major retailing development out- side the city centre. They have used their powers under town and country planning legislation to refuse permission for such development . . . there is no doubt that the councils’ attitudes have encouraged development in the city centre (Guy and Lord 1993, 104).

Implications of Market Impact It may be argued that the 1985 statement in Hansard reopened the door to that enduring British concern-impact of new developments on existing developments. It may have been cumulative impact (a concept hard to define),

302 Volume 46, Number 3, A u p t 1994

but the fact that impact was resurrected is what is important. It soon became possible to find such comments as the following which were made at a public planning inquiry over an RSC in Hampshire, England, during 1989:

the main considerations are the effects the proposals would have firstly on the existing shopping centres both in terms of their vitality and viability of their modemisation and improvement bearing in mind national and local policy and the degree of qualitative need, secondly on the aims of countryside policies in relation to landscape and strategic gaps to maintain the character of the countryside and to prevent coalescence between settlements (Department of the Environ- ment 1989, 143).

It seemed that the concept of cumulative impact was being reversed. Instead of covering the impact of several schemes on one center, the impact of one scheme on several centers was considered.

An Example From Manchester

Since city-by-city data are superior to aggre- gate statistics, it is useful to turn to a city where an RSC scheme is impending. Few locations better exemplify the sudden collapse of a spate of RSC proposals than does the city of Man- Chester. The city and its environs are shown in Figure 2 and two striking features can be noted. There is immediate confirmation that 10 to 12 miles out from the CBD there is no lack of existing retail infrastructure. Towns nearby such as Altrincham have well-established commercial cores of the very type that have already been augmented by peripheral food superstores and nonfood retail “sheds.” These are not retail deserts with no existing provision. The shopping cart symbols on the map indicate attempts by developers to add a further layer of schemes-many of them RSCs. There is no clear pattern to the proposals; they do not seek to fill obvious gaps in provision as did Brent Cross in 1976. It is clear that the proposals were generally opportunistic and geared to the availability of potential sites. Greater Manchester soon came to find itself with nine notable out-of-town proposals which were eventually considered together (Greater Manchester Council 1986). After a suitably long delay, the one at Dumplington was seen

as the preferred proposal-subject to some traffic access requirements. The Financial Times summarized the issues well:

Its supporters in one comer were the developers who claimed the E2OOm scheme would bolster Manchester’s regeneration and its attempts to attract the Olympic Games, the retailers who argued it would be a magnet for shoppers throughout the Northwest and the politicians who believed it would generate 3,000 construction jobs and 6,000 permanent jobs thereafter. In the other comer were its critics; the property owners, retailers and local councillors who claimed that 1 million sq ft of new shops on the outskirts of Manchester would further damage business in the city (Financial Times March 12 1993, 14).

The Financial Times added that while earlier successful RSC proposals such as Metro Cen- tre at Gateshead established themselves in the 1980s shopping boom, later proposals came a t a time when “The harsher economic climate, and the gradual expiry of leases in town centres may further encourage the retailer’s desertion of the High Street.”

There can be little doubt that where one developer has the chance to build the only new freestanding RSC for a major conurbation, then a quasi-monopoly situation can occur. This acts as counterpoint to the potential for gross over provision that can flow from a com- mitment to market competition. So extensively has Britain adopted the former route that it leaves researchers in an easy position to assess the quality of the four existing RSC schemes (Fig. 3).

The First Wave Revisited

New, binding, local plans are currently being proposed for England and Wales, and RSC developers are not rushing to be included in them. However, the food superstores from the first wave of decentralization of retailing are very actively interested in finding yet more sites. Astonishingly, these types of stores are still being built in great numbers in the teeth of deep recession and despite land costs alone that commonly exceed El0 million. It is true that the application of new, sophisticated tech- niques-led by geographers-are improving store location policies (Penny and Broom


Oldham

P, Y

c-7

ckport

Altrinct 4? P //

lam 'c c-7

9 9 Third Wave Proposals P

0 5 miles Wilrnslow

cs

Figure 2: Retail structure of the Manchester conurbation with locations of proposed "third wave" centers and successful Dumplington site.

304 Volume 46, Number 3, August 1994

,-’Metro Centre ( Gateshead), RSC

0 50 miles

\

Dumplington .(Manchester)

Meadow hall (Sheff ield)

Merry Hill (Dudley)

Figure 3: The four existing British “third wave” regional shopping centers (RSCs) and the proposed Dumplington mall (location in parenthesis).

1988). The use of the census, of technologies based on personal computers, and the analysis of laser-scanned sales data have all made store location more “scientific.” However, the latest concern is that some believe Britain is close to saturation in the food retail market. Increas- ingly, critics suggest that the growth of food retail stores is unnecessary given the current population trends and the present state of the economy. Additionally, there is evidence that the foodstore development process is possibly sustained only by financial illusion (Wrigley 1992, 1993; Shiret 1992; Hallsworth 1992).

Crucially, the latest research is focussing less on the geography of store location and rather more on the important property investment dimension. It is being argued that the foodstore developers are taking on massive “sunk costs” (Clark 1992) that may be irretrievable. In this, they are being pressured by those who want to invest in retail property (Hallsworth 1993). This may suggest that the investor-led pressures for mall development in North America do find some parallel in Britain a t last, but in the foodstore sector. The clue seems to be that if a sector is being overdeveloped relative to


sustainable markets, then probably something other than market demand is driving the process.

Finally we can recap on the foodstore situation-the longest-running tale of decentralization. Just how much of Britain’s food shopping takes place in noncentral locations? Be- cause data are so poor, it is impossible to state definitively. Yet some of Britain’s food retailers have virtually no presence in peripheral locations. A study by analysts Henderson Crosthwaite (1 992) suggested that probably 68% of “food” sales (admittedly including al- cohol sales, newsagencies, and other specialists) was still taking place on “High Streets.” It follows that decentralization as a process has some way yet to go.

Conclusions

The process of retail decentralization is one that has many facets. This paper has argued that the enduring centrality of property matters in Britain is a dimension that should not be ignored. Those wishing to invest in retail property, or having an existing property port- folio, eschewed the possibility of joining in the third wave boom. The rush was led by locally based developers living near EZs who saw a particular development opportunity in their local area. The really big institutional investors had their money sunk in High Streedtown center schemes. They had a great deal to lose if a massive supply of out-of-town floorspace came on stream. Mallinson put it rather well:

Town centres carry a strong card of vested interest. That vested interest can express itself vigor- ously through the planning system. This preju- dice needs rather careful evaluation because the activities of planners and of the politicians who manipulate them are not open to rational antici- pation (Mallinson 1986, 3).

Fortunately for those vested interests, planning delays meant that the artificially created consumer boom collapsed before most schemes were under construction. The delay gave the developers time to walk away from what could have been disastrous schemes. Britain has been left with a tiny trickle of RSC schemes rather than a flood-the decentralization boom is as far away as ever. W

Literature Cited

Beaumont, J. R. 1988. Store location analysis: Prob- lems and progress. In Store Choice, Store Location and Mayket Analysis, ed. N. Wrigley, 87-105. Lon- don: Routledge.

Berry B. J. L. 1963. Commercial Structure and Com- mercial Blight. Research Paper No. 85. Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geogra-

Breheny, M. J. 1983. Modelling store location and performance: A review. European Research 11:lll- 21.

Breheny, M. J., J. Green, and L. J. Roberts. 1981. A practical approach to the assessment of hypermarket impact. Regional Studies 15:459-74.

Bromley, R. D. F., and C. J. Thomas. 1989. The impact of shop type and spatial structure on shopping linkages in retail parks. Town Planning Revim 60:45-70.

Brown, S. 1989. Form and function in an unplanned retail park: Evidence from the Abbey Trading Centre. Area 2 1 : 13 7 4 4 .

Bubb, N., and M. Husson. 1988. Retail Space: Too much? Too late? London: Morgan Stanley Re- search.

Clark, G. L. 1992. Strategy and structure: Corporate restructuring and the characteristics of sunk costs. Mimeo, Department of Geography, Monash Uni- versity, Australia.

Davies, R. L. 1977. Issues in retailing. In Issues in Urban Socieiy, ed. R. L. Davies and P. Hall, 132- 60. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Davies, R. L., and D. J. Bennison. 1978a. The Eldon Square Regional Shopping Cenme-The First Eight- een Months. Corbridge: Retailing and Planning Associates.

Davies, R. L., and D. J. Bennison. 1978b. The planning repercussions of in-town shopping schemes. EFtates Gazette 246(5877):117-19, 121.

Dawson, J. A. 1980. Retail Geography. London: Croom Helm.

Dawson, J. A., and J. D. Lord. 1985. Federal and state intervention in shopping centre development in the USA. In Shopping Centre Development: Poli- cies and Prospects, ed. J. A. Dawson and J. I). Lord, 9-39. London: Croom Helm.

Dent, B. D. 1985. Atlanta and the regional shopping mall: The absence of public policy. In Shopping Centre Development: Policies and Prorpects, ed. J. A. Dawson and J. D. Lord, 95-104. London: Croom Helm

Department of the Environment and Welsh Office. 1988. Planning Guidance Note PPG6. London: HMSO.

Department of the Environment. 1989. Decision Let-

phy.

ters.

306 Volume 46, Number 3, Aagtlst 1994

Financial Times. 1993. Out of town but much in mind. Financial Times 12 March.

Garreau, J. 1992 Edge City. New York: Anchor Books.

Gayler, H. J. 1984. Retail Innovation in Britain: The Problem of Out-of-Town Shopping Development. Norwich: Geobooks.

Gayler, H. 1989. The retail revolution in Britain. Town and Country Planning 58:277-80.

Gibbs, A. 1986. The retail warehouse: A hybrid form of development. Land Deuelopment Studies 3:45- 58.

Goldberg, M. A., and J. Mercer. 1986. The Myth of the North American City. Vancouver: UBC Press

Gransby, D. 1984. Cooperation or conflict. Proceed- ings, PTRC 12th Annual Summer Meeting and Ex- hibition, 45-50. Brighton, England.

Greater Manchester Council and Roger Tym and Parmers. 1986. Greater Manchester and the com- ing of the third wave. In Handbook of Retailing, ed. A West, 11548. Aldershot: Gower.

Guy, C. M. 1976. A method of examining and evalu- ating the impact of major retail developments upon existing shops and their users. Environment and Plunning A 93491-504.

Guy, C. M. 1980. Retail Location and Retail Planning in Britain. London: Gower.

Guy, C. M. 1987. The assessment of retail impact. The Planner 73:31-34.

Guy, C. M., and J. D. Lord. 1993. Transformation and the city centre. In Retail Change: Contemporary Issues, ed. C. Thomas and R. Bromley, 88-108. London: UCL Press.

Hall, P., R. Thomas, H. Gracey, and R. Drewett. 1973. The Containment of Urban England. London: Allen and Unwin.

Hallsworth, A. G. 1988a. The Human Impact o f Hy- permarkets and Superstores. Aldershot: Gower (Ave- bury).

Hallsworth, A. G. 1988b. Retail competition. In Handbook of Retailing, ed. A. West, 267-83. Alder- shot: Gower.

Hallsworth, A. G. 1990a. Regional shopping centres: More home thoughts from abroad. Town and Country Planning 59:51-53.

Hallsworth, A. G. 1990b. Public sector influences on private sector retail developments. Intmational Journal of Retail and Distribution Management 18: 18-20.

Hallsworth, A. G. 1991. Regional shopping centres: Case studies on recent policy decisions in Canada and the UK. The Smice InduszriesJournal11:2 19- 32.

Hallsworth, A. G. 1992. The New Geography of Con- sumer Spending. London: Pinter Publishers.

Hallsworth, A. G. 1993. Stock market influences on retail restructuring. Paper presented to the anual

conference of the Institute of British Geogra- phers, London, England.

Hansard. 1985. Retail Developments. Parliamentary written answer, 5 July.

IIart, I. 1984. Address to Institute of Chartered Surveyors, London (mimeo).

Henderson Crosthwaite. 1992. Retail Report. Lon- don: Henderson Crosthwaite.

Hillier Parker Research. 1986-1992. Shopping Schemes in the Pipeline (Annual reports). London: Research Department, Hillier Parker Intema- tional Estate Agency.

Howard, E. B. 1986. Measuring the impact of the big schemes. Town and Country Planning 55:282- 84.

Huff, D. L. 1964. Defining and estimating a trading area. Journal of Marketing 28:3438.

Jones, K. J., and J. Simmons. 1987. Location, Location, Location. Toronto: Methuen.

Jones, P. 1989. The modernisation and expansion of central shopping centres. The Service Industries Journal 9:3 99405.

Lakshmanan, T. R., and W. G. Hansen. 1965. A retail market potential model. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 3 1 : 1 3443.

Lee, M. 1989. The Third Wave Breaks. Development Economics Bulletin No. 4. London: Lee Donald- son Associates.

Lord, J. D. 1985. The malling of the American landscape. In Shopping Centre Development: Policies and Prospects, ed. J. A. Dawson and J. D. Lord, 209-25. London: Croom Helm.

Lord, J. D., and C. M. Guy. 1991. Comparative retail structure of British and American cities: Car- diff (UK) and Charlotte (USA). lntemtional Re- view of Retail, Dirtribution and Conrumer Research 1:391436.

Mallinson M. 1986. Investment considerations. In Proceedings, Edward ErdmanICBI Conference; The Future for Shopping, In or Out of Town? 1-17. Lon- don: CBI.

McGoldrick, P., and M. Thompson. 1992. Regional Shopping Centres: Out-of-tan versus In-town. Aldershot: Avebury.

Norris, S. 1990. The return of impact assessment: Assessing the impact of regional shopping centres proposals in the United Kingdom. Papers of the Regional Science Association 69:lOl-19.

Norris, S. 1992. The Return of Impact Assessment. Ph.D. diss., University of Reading, Reading, Eng- land.

OXIRM (Oxford Institute of Retail Management). 1988. Fourth Consumer Survq in the Metro Centre. Oxford: OXIRM.

OXIRM (Oxford Institute of Retail Management). 1989. The Future of Meadowhall Shopping Centre: Further Pmjections. Oxford: OXIRM.

Telecommunications in Small Cities 907

Oxford Retail Group. 1989. Planningfor Major Retail Development. Oxford: Oxford Institute of Retail Management.

Penny, N. J., and D. Broom. 1988. The Tesco approach to store location. In Store Choice, Store Location and Market Analysis, ed. N. Wrigley, 106- 19. London: Routledge.

Saunders, K. 1985. Development in retailing tech- niques. In Healey and Baker Retail Report, 67-76. London: Healey and Baker International Estate Agency.

Schiller, R. 1986. Retail decentralization - The com- ing of the third wave. The Planner 72:13-15.

Scott, I. 1989. Retail Warehousing. London: Fletcher King Research.

Shaw, G. 1985. Shopping centre developments in Toronto. In Shopping Centre Development: Policies and Prospeca, ed. J. A. Dawson and J. D. Lord, 105-25. London: Croom Helm.

Shepherd, I. D. H., and P. T. Newby. 1978. The Brent Cross Regional Shopping Centre: Charactdics and Early Eflectx. Corbridge: Retail and Planning Associates.

Shiret, T. 1992. Putting a price tag on the property of food retailers. Credit Lyonnais Laing 29 May.

Sparks, L. 1987. Retailing in enterprize zones: The example of Swansea. Regional Studies 2 1 :3711?.

Stocks, N. R. 1989. The Greater Manchester shopping inquiry: A case study of strategic retail planning. Land Development Studies 6:57-83.

URPI (Unit for Retail Planning Information). 1989. Recent regional shopping centre decisions. News- letter, September. Reading: URPI.

Wrigley, N. 1988. Store Choice, Store Location and Market Analysis. London: Routledge.

Wrigley, N. 1992. Sunk capital, the property crisis, and the restructuring of British food retailing. Environment and Planning A 241521-26.

Wrigley, N. 1993. Sunk costs and corporate restructuring: British food retailing and the property crisis. Paper presented to the annual conference of the Institute of British Geographers, London, England.

ALAN G. HALLSWORTH is Director, Service Indus- tries Research Centre, Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3HE, United Kingdom. His research interests are in retailing, Canada, and global flows of finance capital.

Telecommunications and the Large City-Small City Divide: Evidence from Indiana Cities"

Patrick Ales and Adrian Esparza Indiana University Indiana University Urban systems are increasingly dominated by large cities that house a disproportionate share of telecommunications infrastructure. This paper investigates whether telecommunications is defining a technological divide between large and smaller cities. The paper provides a conceptual basis for large-city dominance and presents the results of surveys that investigate the use of telecommunications in medium and small Indiana cities. The survey data indicate that telecommunications is used by the set of Indiana cities, but is less prevalent among the set of smallest cities. Chi-square tests, however, suggest that city size does not adequately explain these variations in use. Key Words: city systems, telecommunications, urban development.

Susan Lucas

nance of large cities as the economy moves Introduction towards information-based quaternary activi-

ncreased attention is being placed on the ties and becomes increasingly reliant on tele- I role that large cities play in the global econ- communications as a medium of interaction omy (Friedmann 1986; Castells 1989). Much (Hepworth 1990a; Daniels 1991; Sassen 1991; of this interest concerns the growing domi- Drennan 1992). The prominence of the large T h e authon wsh to thank Dawd Meltz, F. Lamar MIUS, Davld Nit& IIiroyulu Okuho, and Todd Weymourh for their contnbuoons to the empirical pomon of the paper.

Professional Geographer, 46(3) 1994, pages 307-316 0 Copyright 1994 by Association of Amencan Geographers Initial submission, July 1993; revised submission, September 1993; final acceptance, November 1993.

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 lJF, UK

Documents

Decentralization of Retailing in Britain: The Breaking of the Third Wave