ABSTRACT
Shopping is one of the most commonplace human activities; shops and shopping centres characterise most settlements in the developed world. It is not surprising, therefore, that retail location has for many years been a prime concern of geographers. Following the development of central place theory in the 1920s, the spatial patterns formed by periodic markets and urban settlements became a subject for study. Much empirical research of a descriptive nature was carried out into these patterns, increasingly linked with studies of shopping travel (for reviews see, for example, Beaujeu-Garnier and Delobez 1979; Carter 1995). More recently, research into retail location has become informed by theories of consumer choice behaviour and strategic decision making by retail organisations (Guy 1980; Brown 1992a; Jones and Simmons 1990). There are signs now that the subject is forging renewed links with mainstream concerns in economic and cultural geography (Wrigley and Lowe 1996).
