Retail Districts Research Articles

Accesibilidad urbana a la atención médica primaria: estudio comparativo de Canadá, EE.UU. y de Chile

The question of accessibility to primary medical care is examined for three medical systems; the large private market in the United States and the predominantly state-financed systems in Canada and Chile. Major health policies in these countries are reviewed and the spatial patterns of primary care physicians and centers are described. Comparative findings reveal that private physicians' preference for locating in pleasant residential settings in both Canada and Santiago, Chile is an indication that the more state-financed medical systems tend to be weaker agents of disperion than the free-market structure of the U.S. Unlike Canada and Chile, the locational attributes of primary care practitioners in the U.S. are their proximity to suburban retail districts and major thoroughfares of automobile travel.

The Locational Change of Retail Functions in the Keihanshin Metropolitan Area

In recent years a new view has emerged that some of the metropolitan areas are now altering their fundamental structure. Because of the suburbanization of the population and industries of the central city, even the population of the metropolitan area as the commuter area of the central city has began to decline. According to this view this situation means that the monocentric structure of the metropolitan area is changing into a structure which has multiple cores. It has been asserted that some of the Japanese metropolitan areas are also nearing this situation. In Japanese metropolitan areas, too, the population, manufacturing and retail functions of the central city are now suburbanizing.In this paper the change of the structure in the metropolitan area is verified through the investigation of the suburbanizing process of retail functions. Retail functions are the most typical of the functions which are rapidly suburbanizing these days. In the same way that commuters are attracted by the functions of places of employment, the functions of retail districts in attracting consumers contributes to the formation of the metropolitan area as a functional region. The suburbanization of the retail function is analyzed from two sides. In the first place, the Index of Population Specialization in the retail function of each administrative unit (cities, wards, towns, and villages) is calculated.S=Ri/Pi/Rm/PmS: Index of Population Specialization R: Agglomeration of the Retail FunctionP: Population i: Administrative unit m: Total of the metropilitan areaR is calculated as follows.R=∑Ej·WjE: Number of the persons engaged by industryW: Weight from the value of annual sales per one employed personj: Industry (intermediate group)Secondly the change of the commercial districts where consumers in the metropolitan area go to buy are examined.The results of these analyses are as follows: The retail functions of most units in the suburbs are supplying almost all the demand of their population. It is not only convenience goods but also shopping goods that come to be supplied in the suburb. The commercial districts at the core of the central cities however maintain their position. And it is the retail functions of the units in the inner city, except for the cores, and the units at the edge of metropolitan area that are stagnant.The structure of retail functions in the Keihanshin metropolitan area once showed a differential between the commercial districts of the central cities and those of the suburbs. But only the commercial districts of the core now maintain the differential. In such a manner, at least as far as retail functions are concerned, the monocentric structure of the metropolitan area is evidently declining step by step. It is supposed that these districts keep their position due to the qualitative changes of the commercial districts in the core of the central city as posited by Western urban studies. These changes and the new structures must be clarified, with this in mind, it is necessary to throw light on the growth of the suburb and its relation to the core.

Residential Structure of Tokyo During the Taisho Era (1920)

A study of factorial ecology is one of the most useful techniques for the analysis of urban residential structures. Studies of the residential structure of Japanese cities using this technique have recently become popular. However, these studies do not deal with historical change in the ecological structures of the various factors.With this problem in mind, the following study was conducted: As it has been the largest city in Japan, Tokyo was selected as the most appropriate study area. The Taisho era was selected as the first step for historical analysis. During this period, the urban structures of the Castle-Town, which had been built during the Edo era, coexisted with modern structures built during and after the Meiji era.It has been said that the urban structure of Tokyo is generally divided into two areas: The white-collar residential districts (Yamanote) of the uplands, and the blue-collar residential districts (Shitamachi) of the fluvial lowlands. The areal pattern of the boundary has not, however, been investigated in detail until now. The purpose of this paper is to explain the urban residential structures of Tokyo during the Taisho era.In the first stage of the analysis, a set of variables describing the social and economic characteristics of residential groups in various districts of the city was selected from some population characteristics taken from the 1920 Population Census of Japan. A total of 19 variables and 816 districts were used to determine the socioeconomic factors shown in Table 1. The principal factor method was then applied to the 816 x 19 original data matrix, and factor loadings, factor scores, and eigenvalues were obtained. These factors were rotated by the normal varimax method in order to obtain a simple structure. Next, factor loadings were interpreted and factor scores were mapped.The factor analysis produced six factors which together accounted for 74 percent of the total variance of the data (Table 2). The first factor, accounting for 26.5 percent of the variance, separates the households of middle-aged craftsmen with children from wholesale and retail workers' household. Districts which were characterized by the households of middle-aged craftsmen with children extend to the eastern parts of Tokyo. For example, many districts in the Asakusa, Honjo, and Fukagawa Wards, and the western small valley tracts are included here (Fig. 2-a). High negative factor scores showing large wholesale and retail workers' household coincide with commercial districts (especially: wholesale store districts) in the Nihonbashi and Kyobashi Wards along the Tokaido and Oshukaido thoroughfare (Fig. 2-b). Negative factor scores are also seen in the western upper residential quarters. The second factor is interpreted as indicating workers in civil service and indepedent business enterprises. The districts having factor scores greater than 0.5 lay in Kojimachi, western Kanda, and the area from Akasaka to Hongo Wards, where sector patterns coincided with the Yamanote upland (Fig. 3). The third factor is interpreted as the “old widow factor”. High positively scored districts were distributed in the western residential areas and central entertainment districts (Fig. 4). On the other hand, high negative scoring districts were composed of four types of quasi-households. These are central wholesale and retail districts, eastern manufacturing areas, students' quarters and army quarters. The fourth factor is interpreted as blue-collar, the fifth factor as female workers and the sixth factor as unmarried persons. In cluster analysis the similarity between districts was measured by Euclid distance, and the hierarchical groupings were selected by the centroid method.

Esthetic Impact of Boston Central Artery Project on Urban Environment

Highway projects are not usually enhancers of the esthetic environments in urban areas. A proposed solution to problems in Boston caused by a highway project is to reconstruct the Artery underground, removing the elevated structure and freeing acres of a land for new development and open space uses. The esthetic implications of the proposal are tremendous. The project passes through historic Charlestown, removing aerial ramps from a blighted commercial area and enhancing the environment for the rehabilitation and renovation already underway. In other parts of the 3-mile route, an underground expressway will permit new uses of the land to unite thriving new office, retail, government, and residential districts with each other while enhancing access to the waterfront, also undergoing renewal. Esthetic considerations will be crucial in the planning and design process. Because of the unique nature of both the project and city in which it is located, innovative approaches will be needed.

Geographical structure in nineteenth-century urban retailing: Milwaukee, 1836–1890

This study explores the spatial structure of retailing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the era before the introduction of the electric streetcar in 1890. It uses city directory listings to chart changes in the numbers and types of retail outlets, their degree of nucleation and the functional complexity of such nucleations. The evidence suggests the early appearance of non-central retailing, the rapid dispersal of high as well as low order goods to non-central sites and the early emergence initially of a three-level and then, by 1870, a four-level hierarchy of shopping clusters. The pattern of retail clustering varied with the class and ethnic character of neighbourhoods, and clusters gravitated toward major arterial routes even in the pre-mass transit ear. Urban retailing in the second half of the nineteenth century was neither randomly dispersed nor over-whelmingly concentrated in a single central retail district, but developed a spatial hierarchy that clearly anticipated modern patterns.

The Retail Pattern of Manila

THE pattern of retail structure in Manila reveals that combination of Eastern and Western influences which pervades nearly all aspects of the city. Historical associations with Spain and the United States are reflected again and again, yet the city retains the flavor of an Asiatic metropolis. Reconstruction of the war-devastated sections, plus a postwar growth of the urban population to more than two million persons, has placed a severe strain on the pre-existing retail facilities. The resultant expansion in retail structure tends to follow long-established patterns. A street-by-street survey reveals three distinctive patterns or combinations of patterns. Scattered through the city are I4 public markets, selling mainly foodstuffs, each market tending to be the core of a compact retail district. Along certain principal streets, retail stores are concentrated in a linear pattern, and throughout the residential areas there is a widespread scattering of tiny neighborhood stores. In a few places the three patterns blend; the most important is a zone of heavy retail concentration in the vicinity of the Escolta and Rizal Avenue midway between the Quinta, Central, and Divisoria Markets. This is the central retail district of Manila (Fig. i).

City Planning under Industrialization: The Case of Cleveland

DURING THE first half of the nineteenth century the midwestern town of Cleveland, Ohio, developed from a pioneer outpost of a dozen people to a thriving mercantile center of some 30,000 population. Most of this expansion took place after 1827 when the Ohio-Erie canal reached the lake and greatly stimulated the lagging commerce and immigration of the region. This phenomenal growth of Cleveland was hence largely concentrated within the second quarter of the century and its very rapidity made orderly development difficult. It is clear from the record, however, that disorder within the city at this time must also be traced to improvisation as a substitute for long-range planninginevitable in a region and an age unfamiliar with the concept of planning; to subservience to economic pressuregroups, particularly the real-estate interests; and to the hold which conservatism and tradition had upon the thinking of the community leaders. These factors played a large part in shaping the community before 1850 and hence the next period was to inherit an already ill-formed design and a city inadequately prepared for the deluge of industrialization which was shortly to be visited upon it. In the third quarter of the century, following hard upon the canal era, Cleveland entered a second period of rapid expansion and pervading change. The new impetus was provided by the railroads and heavy industry and under these stimuli the city changed its character almost completely for the second time. Faster transportation and the needs of industry fostered a new and larger wave of immigration. Accordingly, the city limits were repeatedly extended and as the older center became congested, new streets were laid out on the periphery. With this lateral expansion, better transportation became imperative and required extensive street improvement and systems of public conveyance. Water supply and lighting had to keep pace and new services had to be supplied, in particular refuse disposal and sewerage. The need for public grounds became more conspicuous with increased population and extended boundar es. Grave new issues attendant upon industrialization had to be faced. Of these the problems of air and wat r pollution were most acute. There was a multiplicity of problems to accompany a period of trem ndous pressures and great physical change and many of these problems were new. Unfortunately, both the physical forms and the procedures inherited from the previous era were detrimental to their solution. The street at ern was established and large areas of town already were built up and the character of each section of town became mor deeply imprinted as the decades passed. The me cantile concentration along the river became more crowded as the railroads and industry moved into this area. The retail district became both more dense and more ex-