The Influence of Local Fiscal Structure and Growth Control Choices on 'Big Box' Urban Sprawl in the American West

Author: Robert W. Wassmer
Year: 2002 (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy)
Source type: article (empirical/quantitative)
Raw file: raw/articles/wassmer-2002-big-box-retail-decentralization.md

Summary

This is an empirical urban-economics report by Robert W. Wassmer (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2002) examining the determinants of "big box" retail (building-materials stores like Home Depot, and new/used auto sales) decentralization in 54 western US metropolitan areas across 1977, 1987, and 1997. It investigates how local fiscal structure — particularly property-tax limitation measures (California's Proposition 13, Oregon's Measures 5/47, Colorado's Amendment 1) — and local growth-control choices influence where large-format retail locates relative to central places, i.e., the suburban "sprawl" of big-box retail.

Key Claims

• Big-box retail is a proxy for retail sprawl: the report models the share of big-box (building material and auto) retail sales occurring in non-central/suburban locations, treating "Home Depots" and "automalls" as the popular face of big-box retail.
• Fiscal structure matters: the western states' property-tax limitations (Prop 13 and analogous initiatives) create "natural experiments" to test whether municipal fiscal structure influences metropolitan retail decentralization.
• Method: regression analysis across 54 western MSAs, using suburban retail sales as dependent variables and fiscal-structure and growth-control measures as explanatory factors.
• Findings are mixed/empirical: there is "a great deal of variation in the degree of non-central place big box retail activity," with some western states showing increases and others decreases in the suburban share over time; whether decentralization counts as "sprawl" depends on population, income, and demographic shifts.
• The study concerns the fiscal and regulatory determinants of where the consumerist commercial landscape (the "commercial vernacular" of the big box) locates.

Connections

Concepts: Consumerism · Everyday Architecture · Neoliberal Metropolis · Gentrification
Authors: John Chase (commercial vernacular, contrasted) · David Harvey
Related source notes: The Role of Consumerism in American Architecture (Chase) · The Effects of Gentrification (Brummet & Reed) · High Street Diversity (Vaughan)

Direct Quotes

"Big box retail sales are represented by building material and new/used auto sales due to popular perceptions of what big box is ('Home Depots' and 'Automalls')." (Methods)

Open Questions

• This is a quantitative planning/economics source tangential to the wiki's critical-theoretical core. What role should it play — evidence on the fiscal determinants of the consumerist/commercial landscape? Flag for Geoffrey.
• Does the big-box suburban decentralization intersect Geoffrey's "vernacular & everyday architecture" (commercial vernacular) or is it better filed under the financialized/neoliberal city?