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Adaptation to openings of discount retail centers in rural market centers: The case of the North Platte, Nebraska functional region
Abstract
In light of claims that Discount Retail Centers, such as WAL*MART, were dramatically eliminating small town businesses, annual changes in the number of retail and wholesale establishments in several small towns within the functional region of a mid-size rural Nebraska city were analyzed to assess their reaction to DRCs that opened in five different regional market centers at eight different times since 1962. Establishment numbers were expected to change in conformance to sales variations suggested in previous studies. DRC host cities were expected to inordinately gain establishments in the years immediately following the openings of their respective DRCs, while experiencing gains or losses in particular retail and wholesale sectors. Non-host towns were expected to inordinately lose establishments after DRCs opened within the region. Annual establishment numbers, however, showed no consistency in the years following DRC openings in market centers of any size. Abnormal establishment changes did not always occur after DRC openings, and, in several instances, occurred at times not associated with a DRC opening. Moreover, the direction of change (positive or negative) in those instances where abnormal changes did occur were inconsistent over time. Patterns of establishment change over time were similar in larger towns, but became increasingly disparate as town size decreased. Sequences of establishment change varied significantly from place to place in no discernible spatial pattern, although towns located along major routes gained establishments after DRC openings slightly more often than towns located elsewhere. There was no reason found to conclude that DRC openings played a dominant role in forcing regional retailing changes in terms of the number of functions available from place to place within the regional distributional central-place hierarchy.
Subject Area
Geography|Urban planning|Area planning & development|Economics|Social structure
Recommended Citation
Knotwell, James Owen, "Adaptation to openings of discount retail centers in rural market centers: The case of the North Platte, Nebraska functional region" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9600742.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9600742