URBANIZATION AND RETAIL SPECIALIZATION.

URBANIZATION; RETAIL industry; ECOLOGICAL assessment; URBAN growth; URBAN policy

The article presents results of a particular method of summarizing data on retail distribution by city-size groups. The method is general and might be applied fruitfully to the analysis of other types of facilities and distributional phenomena. Its usefulness for the analysis of retail data is primarily to test and make more precise the general impression which prevails as to the relationship between urbanization and retail specialization. The U.S. Censuses of Business for 1939 and 1948 include tabulations of total dollar volume of retail sales for each of some sixty-odd kinds of business categories, by city-size groups. Precise comparisons are possible with the graphical and numerical techniques here referred to as the "urbanization curve" and the "coefficient of urbanization." Little comment is required as to changes in urbanization coefficients between 1939 and 1948. Some changes may be due to revisions of the classification system and to the fact that the tabulations do not include stores with total annual sales under $100 in 1939, whereas the cutting point is $500 in 1948. The most striking observation is that the pattern of comparative degrees of urbanization remains relatively constant over the decade, indicating, perhaps, an approach to some kind of ecological equilibrium.