Patterns of retail location and urban form in Amsterdam in the mid-eighteenth century

In this article location theory is used to map and analyse the patterns of retail location in Amsterdam in the eighteenth century. In the city centre 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 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. The morphological and socio-economic legacy of the past acted as an intermediary between general location principles and the implantation of shops in the urban landscape.