intervening opportunities theory

This theory, advanced by S. A. Stouffer (American Sociological Review 5), states that the number of people travelling a given distance is directly proportional to the number of opportunities at that distance and inversely proportional to the number of intervening opportunities, that is, the number of chances of finding satisfaction in work or residence, for example, which may be encountered along the journey. As an illustration, a number of Jewish nineteenth-century migrants from Russia, bound for the New World, actually settled in the East End of London. The theory is also used to study patterns of consumer behaviour; for shoppers living west of Poole, Bournemouth has more retail outlets, but Poole lies between them and Bournemouth, and thus gets more of their trade. The concept indicates that opportunities nearby are more attractive than slightly better opportunities further away. One drawback of this theory is the difficulty of measuring ‘opportunities’.

E. L. Ullman (1954) believed intervening opportunity to be one of the three fundamental principles underlying spatial interaction. The other two are transferability and complementarity.