ABSTRACT
There have been literally scores of geographical studies during the last two decades concerned with describing broad differences in business provisions between towns. This remarkable flood of work seems to be due to the coincident growth of interest in both theoretical and practical research over the same period in which detailed published statistics about the distributive trades had at last become available and numerous techniques of analysis had been developed to deal with them. The majority of the studies, however, have continued to reflect the traditional predilection in Marketing Geography for distinguishing between the rank levels in business status of places. The main new feature lies in a common adherence to the notion of the hierarchy as the preferred framework for summarising these distinctions.
