Special Issue on Retail Geography

Guest editorial Preface This special issue of the International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR) is devoted to the long-standing applied field of retail geography. The five papers in this special issue address three areas of retail geography: namely, the identification of retail structure, the tracking of retail change and the development of retail location decision support tools. Storie outlines an automated approach to identifying components of retail structure. His applied study describes the development of a set of automated GIS-based routines that are used to remotely delimit clusters of retail activity. The semi-automated approach is demonstrated using an extensive data set of commercial activity in the Southern Ontario markets of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. A series of nearest commercial neighbour statistics are generated as a measure of proximity between commercial locations – which in turn are used as the basis for retail cluster identification. The paper examines a number of different ways in which nearest neighbour statistics can be applied to retail structural research. While the search for a fully automated approach remains elusive, Storie provides insights into the nuances of defining retail structure and the opportunities afforded by GIS in operationalizing what traditionally has been a highly labourious and time-consuming process. Dwan in his paper on retail activity within market towns in the Republic of Ireland approaches structural analysis from a demand threshold perspective. Unlike Storie who focuses on identifying retail clusters, Dwan looks to applying GIS to explain the variation in different types of retail activity by market town. Using a small set of three case study market towns (Nenagh, Clonmel, and Thurles) located in County Tipperary, Southern Ireland he outlines an approach that takes conventional demand threshold analysis and extends its application through the integration of Huff-derived catchment areas to more realistically capture local demand. As opposed to traditional threshold studies which conveniently rely on pre-defined administrative levels of geography Dwan demonstrates the markedly different retail metrics that are generated when efforts are made to capture the draw of a market (i.e., the catchment). His paper highlights that applied GIS approaches can effectively be used to examine retail structure and to benchmark the relative under-or over-penetration of retail activity within a given set of markets. The paper also identifies the shortfalls and limitations inherent in threshold-type analysis and stresses the need for high quality longitudinal data on retail demand and supply.