ABSTRACT
By examining the intricate patterns of interaction between consumer movement and the market behaviour of retail firms a system of shopping centres can be assessed in terms of centrality and the market viewed as dynamic concepts. In practice, however, most analyses of market centrality do not aspire to this ideal. They rest not on the investigation of consumer and entrepreneurial behaviour but on readily available published data. As a consequence they analyse static data mainly in relation to administrative areas rather than retail markets. At the same time most studies of this kind seek to assess the centrality of entire nucléations as discrete units rather than the centrality of component functions. Accordingly this chapter first discusses selected studies of centrality and the market based on census and directory data and then selected studies that seek to analyse by surveys of customer travel the relationships between market and shopping-centre structure.
