By Dr. Maurice Yeates

This research monograph is a time capsule, an analysis of trends, and a set of forecasts.  As a time capsule, it documents the types, magnitude and location of commercial activity in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) at the end of the twentieth century.  Personal time capsules appear to be in vogue during the closing month of 1999 AD.  This is CSCA's contribution to the genre.  Some brave researcher, or IDR (information disseminator robot), one hundred years from now may wish to compare the spatial structure of commercial activity in the year 2100 with the year 2000 - so, here we are dear IDR of 2100, and all the best to you!

Of more immediate interest, the monograph provides an analysis of the locational implications of trends and changes in the consumer service sector in the GTA at the end of the twentieth century. It does this in two ways.  First, the monograph provides a brief outline of the growth and spread during the past one hundred years of commercial activity in the region that is now defined as the GTA.  This places the major growth factors and consumer service innovations, from the downtown department stores of 1900, the super regional malls of the 1970s, to the power centres of 2000, in their historical context.  The analysis then proceeds to reverse this sequence by focusing on the impact of each innovation on the pattern of commercial activity defined by those previous.