By Clement Muma Matengu –

WITH the great increase in the population of the country, demand for both goods and services has led entrepreneurs to venture into the provision of necessary needs to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the population.
However, some community members in some areas seem to be less advantaged as the positioning of shopping centers is not at a point that can be referred to as their door steps.
Regional and community shopping centers are highly dependent on fast, convenient access from their trade areas.
Regional centers usually draw customers from distances of five to fifteen miles and community centers from distance of three to five miles.
In as much as distance plays a cardinal role in terms of location, time is a more important consideration than distance in determining areas of attraction.
In a metropolitan region with a closely spaced freeway grid, regional shopping centers may be as little five miles apart. While convenient access is a key element in selecting a location, even more important is the assurance that no competing center of the same type will be able to locate nearby.
Unlike individual stores, shopping centers usually seek to attain virtual monopolies in their trade areas. From the standpoint of location, the site should represent an impregnable economic position. If vacant land suitable land suitable for a competing center is available in the vicinity there should be reasonable certainty that the site will not be zoned to permit a second center.
Most shopping centers developers agree that visual exposure is another prime location factors, and many believe that for this reason a location adjacent to a freeway is most desirable.
The combining of exposure and access requirements has led to the location of many regional shopping centers on arterial streets immediately adjacent to freeway interchanges.
However, experience has demonstrated that the advantages of such sites often are more apparent than real. If shopping centers access or egress points are located within 600 to 1,000 feet of a freeway ramp, turning movements will cause traffic to back up both on the arterial and on the freeway, particularly during peak business hours.
The ideal regional shopping center site would be surrounded by arterial streets on all sides providing maximum potential for dispersal of traffic and maximum choice for automobile access and egress, Special right turn and left turn lanes should be provided on the boundary streets to accommodate shopping center traffic.
Entrances to the site should be clearly marked.
Transit service to regional, community, and neighborhood shopping centers is highly desirable. Good transit services can minimize the need for providing employee parking. Where shopping centers are located on arterial street in urban areas, bus service is often available.
A few regional centers have provided on-site bus routes with sheltered bus stops conveniently located near major stores entrance, Underground or elevated rapid transit lines with stations within shopping centers have been proposed, but none has been built in the United States. A recent trend is the provision of special access ways and storage facilities for bicycle.
A shopping center site should be regular in shape. Sharp angles, odd projections, or indentations can make site layout difficult.
The minimum site dimension should be about 400 feet for a community or regional center. Typically, the site   dimension should not be divided by any streets.
However, it is often advantageous to have separated though controlled street access to free-standing auxiliary establishment such as automobile service centers, theaters, banks, and drive-in restaurants .Odd-shaped peripheral parcels sometimes can accommodate these kinds of facilities, but it is far easier to plan the traffic circulation systems, including necessary streets, from scratch.
The classical rule of thumb for the size of a shopping center site is 40,000 square feet (about one acre) for each 10,000 square feet of store space. The 30,000 square feet not occupied by buildings is allocated to parking, truck loading and service areas, and landscaping. While this
standard is valid for neighborhood shopping centers and small community shopping centers, larger centers require a lower parking ratio, and site area needs will vary considerably depending on the layout as well as the size of the center.
Shopping center sites generally should be relatively flat, with a slight gradient (less than five per cent) to facilitate drainage. In some instances more steeply sloping sites have been utilised with ingenuity to accommodate multilevel store buildings with customer access and parking at different levels.
Developers of regional centers are best able to justify the relatively large capital investments necessary to deal successfully with sloping sites.
Hence, it is very important to consider both time and distance when the locating a shopping center. Access to the centers should be fast so as to benefit both the shopping center developer and the users who are the public.
(The Author is a fourth year student at the Copperbelt University, School of the Built Environment, department of Urban and Regional Planning and The President for Zambia Institute of Planners Students Chapter)