Some potential points to spur discussion:
- Sporting goods retailers display the strongest relationships with natural assets,
and increase in number with larger areas of public land and water cover where demand
is relatively higher.
- Social capital index has the most ubiquitous positive effect on retail establishment
counts.
- Sporting good stores are more likely to have zero establishments in a metro county.
This finding is somewhat consistent with research that finds big box retailers prefer
areas with lower population density.
- While significant sales tax rate coefficients display mixed signs, higher property
tax rates always lead to a lower probability of zero establishments, supporting previous
findings in the literature that higher public amenities lead to higher retail demand.
For the detailed journal article from which this map derives, see Van Sandt, Anders,
Craig Wesley Carpenter, Scott Loveridge, Rebekka Dudensing, and Linda Niehm. 2021.
“Revealing U.S. Retail Industries’ Functional Hierarchy Through Demand Thresholds.” Under review.
This project was supported by the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive
Program of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), award number
2017-67023-26242.
Economic Opportunity Maps Methodology Discussion Guide User's Guide