The Pattern of Development

In general commercial and industrial establishments have been constructed on level or gently sloping land. There are no commercial or industrial establishments in well-drained areas where the local relief in any given 10-acre grid exceeds 50 feet.⁶ Only one modern manufacturing or warehousing establishment, with about one per cent of the acreage in those two use classes, is located on land with more than 30 feet of local relief. Thus well-drained, level, or gently rolling land has been a basic requirement for all four major commercial and industrial uses, and modern warehousing or industrial uses have been confined for all practical purposes to the more nearly level areas.

Aside from these site characteristics, commercial and industrial developments have also exhibited a number of locational affinities which are illustrated on the maps in Figures 4-14.

2. Shopping Center Uses and Residential Growth

Shopping center uses have tended to develop in direct proportion to residential development. On the advancing frontier of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, residential subdivision has tended to fall

⁶ Local relief is defined as the difference in elevation between the highest and lowest point within the 10-acre grid square.

into one of four fairly well-defined density categories. Those categories may be defined on the basis of number of dwelling units per square mile.⁷

The maps in Figures 15-17 indicate the close relationship between dwelling-unit density and shopping center uses. For each of the years 1945, 1951, and 1958, the study strip was divided into segments according to category of dwelling-unit density. On the basis of density differences, four different segments could be identified for each of the three time periods. Thus there were four times three, or 12, segments in all. Of the 12, three were in the Dispersed-density class, three were Low-density, two were Medium-density, and four were High-density. From Table 2 it is apparent that the different residential density classes have had quite different intensities of commercial development. The only exception occurs in the anomalous case of Robbinsdale, at the north end of the study strip, where the Belt Line leg narrowly misses the old, established business center.

⁷ J. R. Borchert, "The Twin Cities Urbanized Area--Past, Present, and Future", Geographical Review (forthcoming issue).