Accessibility to retail in rural and depopulated places: Diagnosis and challenges for planning

Abstract

Academic literature has paid limited attention to the effects of accessibility variations in rural and depopulated areas. This paper aims to address this challenge by analyzing retail accessibility variations for different socio-economic groups of population, based on their transport mode preferences. The region of "The Maestrazgo", with a depopulation rate of 84% between 1900 and 2017, has served as case study. First, a questionnaire is administered focusing on the willingness of respondents to reach daily and non-daily retail by car, public transport, and on foot. Second, clustering techniques are used to identify different population groups, followed by the comparison of their distance-decay functions based on time-willingness to reach retail destinations. Third, relative accessibility maps based on gravity-based models are elaborated, highlighting places that exhibit statistical differences between the population groups. The results show low accessibility levels to daily and non-daily retail, which imply a high car dependency. Furthermore, accessibility for seniors is found to be significantly different than for the other groups. The paper closes with a discussion on how the obtained results can provide a platform to improve policies in depopulated areas.