Assessing Impact: Impact Assessment as a Factor in Retail Development Decisions in England and the United States

摘要

Recent years have seen growing concern over the impact of large scale retail development in the form of supermarkets, superstores and retail warehouses (or "big box" developments as they are collectively known in the United States). Most of this concern has centred on the impact of big box development on the viability of the traditional high street and small traders, but anxieties have also arisen about environmental impacts, such as the loss of greenfield sites to large retail developments (which are often built on previously undeveloped land); air pollution generated by traffic; polluted run-off water from car parks; the visual impact of big box stores; and other non-economic community impacts.