Take Me to the Centre of Your Town! Using Micro-geographical Data to Identify Town Centres

Paul Cheshire, Christian Hilber, Piero Montebruno and Rosa Sanchis-Guarner

CESifo Economic Studies, 2018, vol. 64, issue 2, 255-291

Abstract: We often talk about ‘Town Centres’ (TCs), but defining their location and extent is surprisingly difficult. Their boundaries are hard to pin down and intrinsically fuzzy. Nevertheless, policymakers often speak or act as if their definition was self-evident. The Dutch and later the British governments, for example, introduced very specific policies for them without ever clearly defining what or where they were. In this article, we propose a simple methodology to predict TC boundaries and extent. Using a range of micro-geographical data, we test our method for the whole of Great Britain in an attempt to capture all the dimensions of ‘town centredness’ in a 3D surface. We believe this is a contribution in its own right but is also an essential step if there is to be any rigorous analysis of TC or evaluation of policies directed at them. Our method should contribute to improve not just debates about cities, shopping hierarchies, and TCs but also to other more general debates where people and policy proceed ahead of any clear definition of what are the objects of interest.

Keywords: town centre; planning; retail sector; land use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L81 R12 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Take me to the centre of your town! Using micro-geographical data to identify town centres (2018)
Working Paper: Using Micro-Geography Data to Identify Town-Centre Space in Great Britain (2017)
Working Paper: Using micro-geography data to identify town-centre space in Great Britain (2017)
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