Spatio-temporal features and the dynamic mechanism of shopping center expansion in Shanghai

• We analyse the spatial patterns and evolution processes of shopping centers.
• We touch on the dynamic mechanisms of spatial expansion of shopping centers.
• Government planning is the most important expansion impetus of shopping centers.
• Shopping centers' spatial development has reached a primary balanced state.
• The hot spot analysis is a very effective method to identify the hierarchy of business circles.

Since the first modern shopping centre was built in the United States in the 1920s, shopping centres have gradually become representative patterns of economic growth and consumerism in the United States, and these patterns are now trending globally. Shopping centres have demonstrated tremendous development potential since their initial entry into China in the 1990s. Shanghai is the most economically prosperous city in China, and the development and evolution of its shopping centres reflect the trend in China's commercial real estate development. Therefore, based on the central-place and agglomeration economy theory, this paper quantitatively measures and analyses the spatial gravity, extending direction, agglomeration characteristics and hierarchical structure of Shanghai's shopping centres using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and spatial analysis. Moreover, this paper analyses the dynamic mechanism of urban development and its patterns of centripetal and centrifugal movement. The results demonstrate the following. (1) The spatial gravity points are located in the districts of Huangpu, Luwan and Xuhui in the city centre and within the inner ring. In addition, there is a trend to be gradually near the middle ring, exhibiting an obvious tendency from the northeast to the southwest. (2) Shopping centres in Shanghai exhibit a clustered distribution in the centres of urban areas, which form numerous business districts that extend in the same direction. (3) The hot spot analysis is a very effective method for identifying the hierarchy of business circles. (4) Planning by the government is the most important external impetus, and commercial agglomeration is the internal force determining the spatial expansion of shopping centres. Additionally, urban transportation patterns have an obvious influence on the spatial morphology of shopping centres. (5) Over the last two decades, the spatial development of Shanghai's shopping centres has reached a balance between the centripetal and centrifugal forces. In other words, we have not observed a tendency towards suburbanization, which indicates that Shanghai's shopping centres are still in the early stages of development. Therefore, future shopping centres may be primarily located in the stretch or peripheral zones of the city.