ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes the location factors in commercial land use. The main currents in commercial structure over the years are briefly described and analyzed in order to discover trends in location. All these trends when carefully assessed provide us with an insight into the dynamics of urban commercial structure and allow us to formulate a body of simple location factors at work within that structure. To test commercial location factors a brief sample study of the San Francisco Bay Area is presented based on field investigation carried out during the last eighteen months. Without question the most important dynamic factor affecting commercial structure has been the changing means of personal transportation. The lag between the gaining of individual transportation and its impact on shopping resulted from the inherited residential patterns. The geography of commerce in American metropolitan areas seems at first view appallingly complex.
