Using neighborhood indicators to understand inner city markets

The economic distress of America's inner cities is one of the most pressing issues facing the nation. Many analysts have asserted the unmet retail demand in inner-city neighborhoods and the potential for translating this demand into investment. Tapping the unmet retail demand has been considered an important strategy to accelerate the economic development in inner cities. The purpose of this study is to propose an analytical framework that can reveal the spatial patterns of retail markets and test whether and to what extent inner-city neighborhoods are actually 'under served'. With the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) tools, this study designs and calculates neighborhood indicators of the demand, supply and gaps in retail markets with census tract level socioeconomic data and parcel level business data. Based on the indicators, econometric models are developed to quantitatively estimate the 'pure' impact of an inner-city location on the local retail supply level. The neighborhood indicator system is applied to the food store markets in the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Diao, Mi, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joseph Ferreira, Jr.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37656

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37656