Finding the Consumer Center of St. Petersburg?

Abstract

In the urban economics, the distribution of people and real estate prices depends on the location of the central business district. As distance from the city center increases, both prices and population density diminish, for travel costs increase in terms of time and money. As manufacturing gradually leaves the cities, the importance of consumer amenities as attractors of population to the urban areas increases. The role of the business center is being taken over by the consumer center. This paper identies the location of the consumer center of St. Petersburg - the second largest city in Russia and its former capital. For this purpose using data from open sources on the Internet regarding the location of dierent types of urban amenities, the indices of their spatial density are computed. Using weights based on coefficients of spatial variation and surveys, the individual indices are aggregated to two general centrality indices. Their unique maxima correspond to the city center of St. Petersburg, which is located on Nevsky prospekt, between Fontanka river and Liteinyi prospekt.