Behavioural Models and Spatial Planning: Some Methodological Considerations and Empirical Tests

This paper is concerned with the relevance of various geographic models of spatial shopping and residential choice behaviour to physical planning. It is argued that models relying on areal aggregation and overt spatial interaction patterns generally do not satisfy a number of methodological requirements considered extremely relevant in an applied context. In addition, it is argued that behavioural models provide a potentially more valuable approach for predicting consumer response to policy decisions with regard to spatial structure. Empirical evidence substantiating the claim that consumer evaluations bear some systematic relationship with objective attributes of spatial alternatives and overt choice behaviour is provided in the context of spatial shopping behaviour and residential choice behaviour.