Abstract
In this paper the changing behaviour of three shopping centres over time is described. The middle-ranked centre had stable occupancy levels, and shopping patronage over a finite time period is shown from the Fourier analysis to be periodic. The largest shopping centre does not exhibit the same behavioural characteristics. It is argued that agglomerative effects distort the space — time associations in the patronage distributions there. There is a return to the classical view of space-discounting shopping opportunities in the differential equation, and the results reflect the spatial trends observed in the survey data. When boundary conditions are applied to this equation, particularly for smaller shopping centres, a number of interesting conclusions can be drawn. Of particular significance is that consumers within the centres are viewed as jump discontinuities in the patronage distribution and that the gravity relationship changes depending on the time of survey.
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