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Geographic Distribution
of Connecticut Shopping Centers
Connecticut
covers 5,018 square miles, or roughly 55 by 90 miles. Outlines are the
boundaries
of 169 towns, the basic political units. The sixteen most populous
towns are
shaded and the locations of their most urbanized centers are shown by
black
dots. Large yellow dots indicate the locations of Connecticut’s 10
super-regional malls; smaller yellow indicate the next 36 largest
shopping
centers in their respective towns, but not necessarily in their actual
locations. Red lines show routes of interstate highways.*
Connecticut’s
largest shopping centers are located
primarily in or near major
population
centers and adjacent to interstate highways. They are
noticeably absent
from
the largely rural northeastern quarter of the state, where average
household
incomes are generally below the state median, and from the
northwestern
quarter, which is also rural and more isolated that any other part of
Connecticut.
Although none
of the ten super-regional malls is located in any of the ten wealthiest
towns,
which are predominantly in the extreme southeast, three malls (Stamford
Town
Center, Westfield Trumbull, and Westfield Connecticut
Post at Milford) are in adjacent and relatively less affluent towns.
On average, Connecticut’s
shopping centers are smaller and more crowded than shopping
centers
in other states.
Shopping
Centers 250,000 sq ft GLA and Larger
Persons per
Total State
Average
size Shopping
Center Area
(sq
ft GLA)
(per
1000 sq ft GLA)
Connecticut
493,000
164
Average
for all states
537,000
139
*Four state
limited-access highways are not shown: Routes 2 (Hartford southwest to
I-395),
8 (Bridgeport north nearly to the Massachusetts line), 9 (I-91 south of
Hartford, southwest to I-95), 15 (junction of I-691 and I-91 southeast,
parallel and to the west of I-91; then west, parallel and to the north
of I-95,
to the New York border).
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