Within a context of public policy debate in the United Kingdom on social exclusion, health inequalities, and food poverty, the metaphor of the 'food desert' caught the imagination of those involved in policy development. Drawing from a major cross-disciplinary investigation of food access and...

The Competition Commission’s analysis in 2007 of entry and exit conditions among small stores across more than one thousand British high streets provided a landmark piece of research on a topic in which debate and policy recommendations had moved significantly, and arguably dangerously, ahead...

At a time of increasing government concern with the economic health of UK town centres and high streets, and with an independent inquiry (led by Mary Portas) on <i>Revitalising the High Street</i> to report by the end of 2011, this paper seeks to make four contributions. First, to inject into an...