Commercial center

“ The shopping center premises are open to the public to the same extent as the commercial center of a normal town. So far as can be determined, the main distinction in practice between use by the public of the Logan Valley Mall and of any other business district, were the decisions of the state courts to stand, would be that those members of the general public who sought to use the mall premises in a manner contrary to the wishes of the respondents could be prevented from so doing. ”

“ So much has been written about this commercial center that I will not attempt its description, especially as I was not there in fair season. The population of the town—ordinarily forty thousand—becomes three hundred thousand during the fair. More than half a million persons have visited the city in a single summer, and the value of goods sold or exchanged during each fair is about two hundred millions of roubles. ”

“ It serves as the locus for the manufacturing of commodities. In addition it may combine the functions of the primary service and the commercial types. It may have its local trade area and it may also be the distributing center for the surrounding hinterland. The type is characterized merely by the relative dominance of industry over the other forms of service. There is practically no limit to the size to which an industrial community may develop. Growth is dependent upon the scope and market organization of the particular industries which happen to be located within its boundaries. ”

“ It would also make New York the outlet for the export trade of the United States with other countries, making New York city not only the greatest financial center, but also the greatest commercial city. ”

“ Commercial centers are prosperous and important, in proportion as they have adequate, efficient and cheap transportation. This is as true of the country town with a single railroad line as it is of a continent’s metropolis with half a hundred great railroad systems pouring their tonnage into its terminals and with the ships of all the seven seas unloading their cargoes at its wharves.
It is an axiom that good, ample and cheap transportation actually makes commerce. The country town which has no railroad always wants one. ”

“ For instance, one can go to the trade centers for meats and vegetables, and purchase what he wishes or give his order. At the time corresponding to six o'clock of our time in the morning the meat and vegetable cars start on their respective routes, while the trade centers are open for personal callers. Marketing goes on at the market center while the cars are selling throughout the city. At nine o'clock the delivery cars leave the trade centers.
Similar to the manner of our world, each home is numbered in such a way that no two houses have the same designation. ”

“ And finally, another disadvantage, affecting important city interests, has been the increasing tendency toward the diversion of trade from established retail commercial concerns located in the central business district to enterprises newly founded in outer sections, often without the city boundaries. ”

“ The diminishing relative importance of elementary wants, improvements in scientific cultivation and in agricultural machinery, and the opening of distant and virgin fields by better transportation have reduced the relative number of workers needed on the soil.
II. The Growth of Commercial Centers. [34] This went hand in hand with the Agrarian Revolution. Trade has been the basis of city founding. The prevailing influence in determining location has been "a break in transportation." Where goods are transferred and where, in [44] addition, ownership changes hands, urban centers grow up. ”

“ It is when the transfer of goods is accompanied by a breaking of bulk or by a change of ownership, there being then added the complex mechanism of commercial exchange performed by importers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers, insurers, brokers and bankers, that wealth is accumulated and localized, with consequent power to control business for local benefit.
Manufactures are of constantly increasing importance in city growth, owing to the development of the factory system and the advantages of labor supply, transportation, and markets in the larger cities. ”

“ Increase and improvement in facilities for communication help the expansion of commercial and industrial centers, [Pg 127] but also contribute to the scattering of population over wider areas. The most potent factors in attracting people to the cities were, in former times, the commercial facilities they afforded, with opportunities to obtain employment in trade, and are now the opportunities for employment in trade and in manufacturing industries. ”

“ One square from Arch street is Market, designed years ago by the far-sighted Quaker to be just what it is today—a great commercial thoroughfare of one of the metropolitan cities of America. At its feet the ferries cross the Delaware to the fair New Jersey land. Up its course to the City Hall—or as the Philadelphian will always have it, the Public Buildings—are department stores, one of them a commercial monument to the man who made the modern department store possible and so doing became the greatest merchant of his generation. ”

“ Moreover, the opinions of market-men and of experts on the values of retail trade locations seem to be that the chances are desperately against the commercial success of any basement or underground market, no matter what skill may be exercised in meeting the problems of lighting, ventilation, and means of access. ”

“ Although numerous companies are now engaged in this industry, it constitutes a comparatively small factor in the commercial interests of the city, inasmuch as it possesses at the present time over five hundred industrial establishments; giving employment to not less than twenty thousand people. ”

“ The greater and the more productive the stock or capital in any community, the more goods it can put into the currents of trade. A mill will make a town a center of trade. Docks, elevators, warehouses and railway terminals help to transform a harbor into a port of commerce. ”

“ Therefore, kind friends, take pride in the Department Store of your town and see to it that it is patronized in a liberal manner by rich and poor alike, and if the storekeeper be but the right sort of a merchant, and one disposed to build up a large trade by small profit inducements, you will soon discover that the town center has changed its base, and that the threshold of the Department Store is now the hub from which all people radiate. ”

“ It stands there, on the front of the edifice, which is the commercial centre of this great city,—the place of meeting for the men of different lands and of many languages, who, as the representatives of every clime and country upon earth, constitute, daily, a sort of typical gathering of all nations,—men connected with the “industry,” by being connected with the trade and traffic, of the world. ”

“ There is nothing to stop highway traffic from coming onto the business block and upon arrival a traveler may make free use of the facilities available there. In short the town and its shopping district are accessible to and freely used by the public in general and there is nothing to distinguish them from any other town and shopping center except the fact that the title to the property belongs to a private corporation.' 326 U.S., at 502-503, 66 S.Ct. ”

“ The larger number may not be called upon to go outside of their town or country, as many must be engaged in the export department, at the factory or the seaport, or in commission houses and banks, as export agents or freight forwarders, etc. Others will go abroad as salesmen on tours, or to reside a few or many years in the capacity of local agents, in branch houses of large companies, civil and mining engineers, etc. ”

“ We have not included those ports to which the bulk of our surplus produce is forwarded, but only such as come strictly within the scope of our subject. There are few places where trade develops statistics of similar character, or anything approximating thereto, while there are plenty of cities of no inconsiderable pretensions, and even great advantages, that would think themselves made if they possessed one-fourth the commercial facilities we enjoy. ”

“ New lines of trade are to be opened. The commercial traveler must survey the field. The manufacturer must adapt his goods to the new markets and facilities for exchange must be established. This work has been well begun, our merchants and manufacturers having entered the new fields with courage and enterprise. ”

“ With such advantages as a receiving and distributing center, it is small wonder that the city has become the nation's chief market place. It is without a rival as the center of the wholesale dry-goods and wholesale grocery businesses. More than half of the imports of the United States enter by way of New York's port, and its total foreign commerce is five times that of any other city in the country. ”

“ It is a busy place, the entrepôt and distributing-point for an immense district, with good shops, some factories, fair hotels, and the usual deformities and refinements of civilisation. Peltry shops abound, and sportsman, hunter, miner, teamster, emigrant, can be completely rigged out at fifty different stores. ”

“ Most of the great industrial corporations of the country have their head offices in the city. These are financed by more than one hundred banks, together with a clearing-house whose yearly business amounted in 1902 to considerably more than seventy billions of dollars. ”

“ In Jacksonville, Fla., there are not less than six hardware stores located in one block. That town of sixty thousand people has several good business streets, but this group of stores has become known as 'The Hard [Pg 233] ware Center' and people gravitate there for anything they want in the hardware line. Those stores benefit by being together. The same thing applies in a smaller way to a street of stores. One store by itself doesn't impel the buying instinct, but a street of stores puts the thought of buying into the minds of people passing them. ”

“ The factor often provides a store, together with a complete selling and office force, and every facility for receiving, storing, selling, and shipping the goods, and for financing the business. The salesmen of the house travel throughout the country, reaching all the important markets, and the managers of the different departments, who thus understand the needs of the market, are in a position to advise the mill with intelligence and exactness as to the kind of goods which should be made to meet the requirements of the trade. ”

“ Out of this necessity there have grown up a number of special organizations which exist for the special purpose of facilitating these readjustments. The market which brought the modern city into existence is one of these devices. More interesting, however, are the exchanges, particularly the stock exchange, and the board of trade, where prices are constantly being made in response to changes or rather the reports of changes in economic conditions all over the world. ”

“ In front is seen the toll-house and receiving station, then the great market hall and, in the upper part of the picture, the restaurant and administration offices. The sidetracks on the right facilitate the rapid distribution of produce sold at the market. Under the great market hall are large refrigeration chambers connected directly with the railroad. ”

“ It is the quick and comfortable transportation facilities which our large cities possess that have given strength to the great shopping centres. Shoppers for thirty or forty miles around can easily reach these centres, and the result is that trade gathers in centres rather than at local points. A city of a million population in the most productive agricultural section of country could not be fed if the food had to reach the city by teaming. With this growth of trade centres comes the increased gain of large dealers at the expense of the small ”

“ The varied human needs of civilization are to be satisfied, and each buyer in his own particular lines must be a man of large experience, of most excellent judgment, and high mercantile ability. They must know the merchandise they buy, that such a factory has the best reputation for one line, that this mill excels in another class, never buying anything simply because it is cheap, but picking out the best manufactures in each department, always maintaining a strict standard of reliability; and that the goods are well bought is demonstrated by the persistent growth of the business. ”

“ In such cases the temporary commercial centre not only reaps the profits of the broker, but all classes of its community benefit by the increase of employments, of floating capital, and of floating population. ”

“ In our time, small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof—from a penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors. But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand. ”

“ In the belief that the establishment of a first-class Terminal Market system, worthy of twentieth century requirements, is a matter of vital importance to every family in New York, I have spent considerable time during the past few months investigating markets on both sides of the Atlantic. ”

“ To illustrate: the modern department store gives more service in connexion with its sales than any other retailing type. It offers the purchaser the advantages of buying many kinds of merchandise under one roof. The purchaser has the benefit of elevators, restrooms, wash-rooms, free delivery, credit, large stocks from which to choose, liberal policies as to examination and trial, pleasant surroundings in which to shop, courteous attendants, and so on, but department store expense of distribution includes the cost of maintaining these services. ”