Released: December 07, 2001

Thirteen Kansas Towns Named ’Little Giants’

MANHATTAN, Kan. – For the most part, large cities dominate the retail climate in Kansas, but 13 towns with small populations have earned distinction as retail "giants."

Kansas State University community development economist David Darling details this year’s small-town success stories in his 12th annual report of city trade pull factors, just released.

The "Little Giants" – a term Darling developed to denote cities with populations under 5,000 residents and which have experienced retail success – include Spivey (4.28 pull factor), Holton (2.03), Marysville (1.65), Sabetha (1.31), Phillipsburg (1.30), South Hutchinson (1.27), Norton (1.26), Garnett (1.20), Hiawatha (1.18), Clay Center (1.15), Hillsboro and Columbus (1.12), Frontenac (1.06) and Tonganoxie (1.02). Darling said his new report shows that there are 23 Kansas cities with populations under 5,000 that have relatively high pull factors.

A city trade pull factor measures a community’s balance of retail trade as reflected by per capita sales tax collections. Pull factors indicate how well a community is attracting and holding onto retail business. A pull factor above 1.00 indicates the community is attracting more business than it is losing.

Theoretically, if every person living in a city only shops locally, the city’s pull factor would be 1.00, even without attracting outside customers. But, recognizing that citizens will at some point shop outside their hometown, cities must attract visitors from other communities in order to replace "leaked" retail dollars with "captured dollars," Darling said.

According to Darling, the newest analysis of retail trade finds that most cities of 5,000 or more residents have a "critical mass of customers to support a full complement of retail businesses." The average pull factor for cities with population above 5,000 is well above 1.00, which includes an average 1.45 pull factor for cities with 80,000 residents or more.

"An ideal situation is to have a critical mass of retail services so that area households can buy all their retail needs – and some of their wants – locally," Darling said.

The K-State study includes information from 158 Kansas communities with fixed sales tax options between July 1, 2000 and June 30, 2001.

Spivey tops this year’s list of small cities with high pull factors. But, Darling said, Spivey’s success is not due to retail business activity. "It is due to activity by oil service businesses," he said.

The town’s population is just 80 residents, yet it generated $19,381 in FY2001 using a 0.5 sales tax rate to support city government services, according to state tax reports.

"A better example of a ‘Little Giant’ is Columbus," Darling said, noting that the southeast Kansas town has a "solid retail base generating sales tax revenue for city government."

Retail power in Kansas, however, still is concentrated in larger cities. All but four of 26 cities which have populations above 10,000 residents have pull factors above 1.00. The exceptions are Kansas City, Kan. (0.79), Prairie Village (0.84), Leavenworth (0.91) and Atchison (0.92).

Among cities with population of 10,000 or higher, Overland Park has the highest pull factor (1.91). The number indicates that retailers in Overland Park – which has a population of 149,080 – attract approximately 281,765 customers, known as the city’s trade area capture.

Some of the others attracting more customers than their population base are Topeka (1.73), Hays (1.73), Great Bend (1.69), Salina (1.63), Hutchinson (1.55), Liberal (1.47), Garden City (1.35), Dodge City (1.32), Emporia (1.29), Lawrence (1.18) and Manhattan (1.17).

Darling, who conducted this study with Chinese visiting scholar Jia Liu, has posted the full report on his Website, www.agecon.ksu.edu/ddarling. For more information, interested persons also may call Darling at 785-532-1512, or send e-mail to ddarling@agecon.ksu.edu.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Pat Melgares, News Coordinator
pmelgare@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News