De locatie van het Amsterdamse winkelbedrijf in de achttiende eeuw

Patterns of retail location in Amsterdam in the eighteenth century

In this paper location theory and Nelson’s distinction between general, arterial
and special accessibility is used to map and analyze the patterns of retail location
in Amsterdam in the eighteenth century. In accordance with theory the
main shopping streets were located in the city center, which was highly accessible
to all residents and to consumers from the surrounding countryside and
small cities. In the city center as well as along the main axes to markets and
the city gates the retailing of shopping goods (textiles, consumer durables) was
much more prominent than elsewhere in the city. In contrast, shops selling
convenience goods (foodstuffs etc) were scattered all over the city. The correspondence
of empirical data and location theory suggests that the urban government
and institutions like guilds did not interfere with the location preferences
of shopkeepers. An analysis of local acts and guild regulations corroborated
this assumption. What did affect the location patterns of shops was history,
or, to put it more precisely, the morphological and socio-economic structure of
Amsterdam as it came about in the preceding centuries. This legacy of the past
acted as an intermediary between general location principles and the implantation
of shops in the urban landscape.