A DYNAMIC MODEL OF CONSTRUCTION OF RETAIL CENTRES IN METROPOLITAN AREAS

A casual observation indicates that construction of new retail centres does not proceed continuous ly over time. In many metropolitan areas, periods of intensive building activity alternate with spells without any significant additions to existing facilities. These cyclical movements are local and embedded in, but separate from, fluctuations due to business cycles. The model presented tries to cast this phenomenon into rigorous terms offering a working hypothesis and a method of confronting it with data. The analytic framework is inspired by the well known Lotka-Volterra model. The analysis indicates that the existence as well as the length and amplitude of cycle s is a function of several parameters some of which are national, and some are essentially local.