Multipurpose Shopping Trips and the Size of Retail Facilities¹

The primary focus of this paper is on the role of multistop multipurpose trips in the interdependence between urban retail facilities. The paper uses an accounting framework to characterize multipurpose travel between retail sectors and between retail sectors and other land uses. A connection is made between the accounting framework and Wilson's aggregate models of urban structure. The (generalized) model is formulated as an equilibrium size problem, and some properties of the equilibrium solutions are derived analytically. The equilibrium size of retail facilities is shown to be sensitive to multipurpose travel behavior.