Retail Outlets and City Centrality: Perspectives from a Sub-Saharan African City

Sub-Saharan African cities are uniquely characterized by retail competition influencing outlet location. This work focused on revealing retail outlet location in Uyo and its relationship with distances from the Central Business Districts. Distance was measured along the six major arterial roads that link the city to the central business districts by the use of Google Map[5] Distance Calculator and itouch maps [7] technology. Six arteries were divided into four distinct spaces in kilometers namely 0-1km, 1-2km, 2-3km, 3-4km. Retail Outlets were grouped into ten classes. Data was analysed using distance in kilometers from the Central Business District as variable Y1. The independent variables X1, X2, X3, X4, X5 and X6 were the six major arteries represented by the location of each specific retail outlet group. Utilising SPSS version 20 software the results reflected centre a 47.9 percent variation in retail outlets location with correlation coefficient (R) of 69.2 % revealing a strong relationship between the distances from the Central Business Districts and the location of retail outlets located across the six major arteries. H1 was accepted which states a significant relationship in the location of retail outlets as distance increase from the city centre across the linkages. This confirms a strong intensity of location of retail outlets in the city centre with a gradual decline as distance increase from the centre. Although there was an increase in intensity of retail outlets in junctions away from the Central Business Districts according to multiple nuclei concept. It is recommended that urban expansion through growth poles.Aim: To access the relationship between retail outlets location and distance from central business district in a Uyo. Research Questions: This work provided answers to the following questions: 1. Where are these retail outlets located in the city space? 2. What is the relationship between Retail outlets and the distance from the City Centre? Objectives: 1. To explain the distribution of location of retail outlets in city space. 2. To reveal the relationship between Retail Outlets and distance from the City Centre. Hypothesis: There is no significant relationship between the distance from the central business district and the location of retail outlets

Indigenous Food Yam Cultivation and Livelihood Practices in Cross River State, Nigeria

Yam production, processing, distribution, and marketing processes are underpinned by socio-cultural beliefs shaped by ritual practices and indigenous wisdom. We used semi-structured interviews, public meetings, keen observation, local informants, and a review of secondary materials to assess local indigenous understanding of interconnected perspectives of yam farming processes, socio-cultural perspectives, and livelihood practices in communities in southern Nigeria. Our findings revealed that over 90% of farmers depend on experiences of adjusting to seasonal challenges, storage practices, and fertility enhancement. Cultural beliefs and spiritual practices pervade farmers’ social attitudes to improving farming operations. Almost 70% of yam producers are aged 60 years and above and depend on crude tools and traditional methods of land management and production process, even though the modern and innovative farming methods and practices are limited. Farmers respond to the poor public support system of extension services by informal networking and local associational relationships with diverse schemes to support and encourage members. Government and organizations should take advantage of these informal structures to empower farmers through micro-credits, education, information, training, supervision, and mechanization. Different groups of actors organized into formal social structures like cooperatives will take advantage of bulk buying, selling, transportation, access fundings, information, education, and training from public and non-governmental institutions. The study findings have demonstrated that the socio-economic structure of the Obudu community has developed extensively on account of decades of yam production and processing, supporting chains of a livelihood network, entrepreneurship, and relationships of mutual cooperation and co-existence