Abstract

Using Oakland, California as a typical satellite city in an intensely competitive urban environment, the author surveys and analyzes the marketing problems of its central business district. The complex problems being faced by the merchants, property owners and citizens of the central business districts of large metropolitan areas have been well documented in recent years, as of September 1965. Heightened costs of municipal services, the growing crush of automobile traffic, and the increasing population imbalance have contributed to a deterioration of business conditions. Some answers to these problems may be found through the renewal of many outworn and obsolete facilities, the construction of parking lots, freeways, rapid transit, and even shopping malls. Yet many of these ambitious projects may prove insufficient to the task. Indeed, it is the thesis of this article that unless these projects are undertaken with a clear notion of the market segment to be attracted, they are likely to fail. The marketing strategy to follow is particularly difficult to perceive for the large cities which lie as satellites to the great metropolitan centers of the country. The metropolitan central business districts have held on to their attractions as entertainment, tourist and financial centers.