Research links CBD decline to extended shopping hours

December 20, 2006

Research at The University of New England shows that the extension of shopping hours leads almost inevitably to the decline of long-established, main-street shopping centres.

Associate Professor Robert Baker (pictured here) has been conducting research on the relationship between shopping hours and the location of shopping centres for the past 20 years in Australia and New Zealand. "It has involved a rigorous analysis of where, when, and how often people shop," he said.

This work has enabled him to produce a mathematical model of shoppers' trips to planned shopping centres and supermarkets. The picture that emerges is one that he believes town and city councils are ignoring at their peril. In simple terms, the extension of shopping hours makes it more possible for people to visit planned shopping centres on the outskirts of urban areas. The development of such centres – in the context of extended shopping hours – leads to the decline of main-street shopping precincts.

Dr Baker has studied this decline, which he refers to as "collateral damage", in several regional cities in NSW, including Maitland, Dubbo and Taree. (In his home city of Armidale he has fears that the current development of two planned shopping centres – although within walking distance of Armidale's "beautiful pedestrian mall" – could lead to "collateral damage" in the mall.)

When hard-nosed economists ask "So what?" Dr Baker responds: "There’s such a thing as community identity. Does a supermarket define a town? Or is it rather the main street, with all its historical connections?"

He lays the blame for these developments, ultimately, on what he calls "producer sovereignty" – the quest by business organisations for "market dominance" rather than for service to the community. He cites the 2005 referendum in Western Australia, in which a proposal to introduce Sunday trading (and extended shopping hours on other days) was defeated.

He has served as an expert witness in many court cases surrounding applications for extended shopping hours. His evidence before a Full Bench of the Industrial Relations Commission in Queensland last year – particularly evidence relating to the potential decline of central business districts – helped to halt a push for Sunday trading in that State.

Dr Baker has produced a detailed treatment of his mathematical model in a book titled Dynamic Trip Modelling: From Shopping Centres to the Internet (just issued by the international publisher Springer). One of the book’s most startling conclusions is that, just as the distance to the shop is an important consideration when someone is planning to go shopping, an analogous concern for distance applies to Internet shopping. "Distance does matter, not only in walking to shops, but also in defining the movement of Internet traffic," he said.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at December 20, 2006 04:47 PM