Co-location tier nomenclature
The co-location index assigns each cluster to one of four tiers based on the categorical composition of its anchor and secondary stores and on the cluster's position within its national population catchment. The tier labels visible on the map — Regional, District, Local, Fringe — are named after the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC) retail property hierarchy, used by property developers, planners, and retail analysts across the North American and European markets the platform covers. The qualifying gates are defined in the catchment ranking methodology and the underlying scoring logic in the co-location ranking system.
What Each Tier Means
| Tier | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Regional | A nationally significant co-location node. Contains both a hypermarket-format anchor and a warehouse club or lifestyle anchor, ranks among the highest in its country by primary catchment population, and has a regionally classified hospital within the civic ring. The highest tier. |
| 2 | District | A sub-regional trade-area node. Contains a hypermarket and a hardware or warehouse anchor, ranks well above its country's median by primary catchment population, and has hospital access within the civic ring. |
| 3 | Local | A hardware or wholesale hub with community-level civic support. Contains at least one hardware or warehouse anchor, ranks at or above its country's median by primary catchment population, and has any hospital within the civic ring. |
| 4 | Fringe | Below threshold on one or more required gates. A commercial cluster with retail co-tenancy but insufficient catchment reach, composition, or civic support to qualify for Local or above. |
Composition Chips
Each cluster carries a composition descriptor displayed below the tier badge. The descriptor names the anchor classes present, separated by "+": for example, "Hypermarket + Hardware + Warehouse" or "Lifestyle + Hypermarket". The four anchor classes are Hypermarket (general-merchandise stores: Walmart, Target, Mercadona, Tesco, Sainsbury's), Lifestyle (large-format home and furnishings: IKEA), Hardware (home improvement: Home Depot, Lowe's, Leroy Merlin), and Warehouse (membership warehouse clubs: Costco, Sam's Club, Makro). The full chain-to-family mapping is documented in the retail brand family taxonomy.
Naming History
The tier labels have been renamed twice since the platform launched, both times in May 2026. The first rename replaced the platform's original code-style labels with plain-English names. The second replaced those with the ICSC hierarchy now in use.
The retired label sets are not reproduced here. No current cluster carries one, and a reader who encounters an old label is looking at a stale export rather than at anything the map produces today.
Two readability failures drove the first change: compound composition descriptors were ambiguous, and a tier code told the reader nothing about rank without a lookup. The second change traded a platform-specific vocabulary for an internationally recognised one. A planner who opens the map without reading any documentation already knows what "Regional" means; the earlier names had to be learned.
The platform's tier names borrow from the ICSC shopping-center hierarchy but are not identical to it. The real ICSC hierarchy is Neighborhood/Community/Regional/Super Regional; only "Regional" is a genuine ICSC term. "District," "Local," and "Fringe" are the platform's own naming choices, not ICSC terms.
The Spanish-language equivalents are: Regional, Distrital, Local, Marginal.
What Changed and What Did Not
The second rename coincided with a change in how tiers are assigned. Previously, tiers were assigned by a composite score that combined a base score with count, diversity, civic-depth, and overlap-penalty terms. Under the current system, tiers are assigned by binary gates: composition, national catchment rank, civic classification, and spatial overlap limit, each tested on its own. The gate definitions are described in the catchment ranking methodology document.
So two things changed at once, and it is worth separating them. The tier names changed to the ICSC labels. The tier assignment method changed from a score threshold to a predicate gate. Both shipped together, which is why a cluster's tier may have moved at the same time as its label.
Reading Tier Colours on the Map
When a user selects a cluster on the map, the tier name displays as a large coloured badge. Below the badge, a muted composition chip names the anchor classes present.
The badge colour encodes the hierarchy: dark navy for Regional, indigo for District, slate for Local, light grey for Fringe.