MANHATTAN, Kan. – Eight Kansas cities with small populations have earned distinction as retail "giants", but the state’s more heavily-populated cities still possess the most retail clout.

Those are the key messages from the 11th annual report of city trade pull factors in Kansas, just released by K-State Research and Extension community development economist David Darling and assistant Sharon Combes.

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.

Put another way, 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 to replace dollars that "leak" from the community with "captured" dollars.

The K-State study included 156 Kansas communities with fixed sales tax options between July 1, 1999 and June 30, 2000. The cities are grouped as first, second or third class, based on a historical choice each city has made and, to a lesser extent, its actual population.

The "Little Giants" – a term Darling developed to denote third class cities with retail success stories – include Spivey (2.14 pull factor), Louisburg (1.53), South Hutchinson (1.22), Elwood (1.25), St. Mary’s (1.20), Westwood (1.06), Medicine Lodge (1.05), and Hill City (1.02).

Spivey’s high pull factor indicates that even though its population is only 99 residents, it actually captures the equivalent of 212 shoppers, known as its trade area capture (TAC). Louisburg, with population 2,334, has a TAC of 3,572.

Darling said that Medicine Lodge is a classic example of a successful community that has "a critical mass of retail services so that area households can buy all their retail needs locally and some of their wants." Those attributes are also typical of Kansas’ "Little Giants."

Among larger cities:

* Seventeen of 21 first class cities have pull factors above 1.00, led by Lenexa (2.16), Overland Park (1.87), Topeka (1.54), Salina (1.53), and Hutchinson (1.50).

* Twenty-two of 53 second class cities have pull factors above 1.00, topped by Merriam (3.35), Mission (2.62), Paola (1.78), Holton (1.77), and Hays (1.59).

Overland Park had the state’s largest retail trade capture, attracting approximately 261,496 customers. Overland Park by itself captures almost 10 percent of the market. The state’s Capital city, Topeka, continues to flex retail muscle; its retail trade capture is at 188,822 customers.

Merriam continues to be an interesting case study, according to Darling. That city’s retailers attract more than three times its population, and the local government collects more than 50 percent of its sales tax revenue from retail activity, he said.

Combes noted that retail activity is very hard for communities to control. Marysville, a new city in the study, was expected to have a high pull factor, but only registered a 0.86 value.

"We all have observed businesses failing for lack of support in small cities across Kansas.

It takes the whole community to support a store. Look at how many grocery stores are in trouble," she said.

Darling, a community development economist for K-State Research and Extension, said the annual report is a way for city planners to measure change and progress. The full report is available on-line at http://www.agecon.ksu.edu/ddarling, or interested persons may call Darling at 785-532-1512.