Agglomeration is a real-world marketing ploy in which establishments are located close to one another to help convince like-minded consumers who may walk out of one establishment and want to go to another. For example, coffee shops and sandwich shops tend to be located close to one another with the idea that customers may leave the coffee shop and want a sandwich, or vice versa.

In major American cities, poor urban areas suffer from a variety of problems due to a few specific realities of their geographic locations. Poor inner-city neighborhoods are usually much more densely populated than their wealthier counterparts, but with fewer amenities due to their worse infrastructure. One of the best examples of the problems produced by these issues is the lack of quality food options from high-end grocers, farmers' markets, or specialty stores.