Do shopping centers abate the resilience of shopping streets? The co-existence of both shopping venues in Ankara,Turkey

The sustainability of cities highly depends on city center viability and shopping street resilience. With the increasing number of shopping centers and their strong impact on existing retail systems, the major urban challenge has become maintaining a balance in the market. When shopping centers appeared, shopping streets began suffering from the negative influence of these new centers. Turkey, as a developing country, suffered from this change in last two decades. With the shopping center supporting policies and regulations of both central and local governments, the situation has become worse, and detrimental to small, independent retailers located on shopping streets. The controlled, trendy and convenient shopping environment, variety, quality and pricing of goods and services have attracted customers to shopping centers. This has been a revisited topic in the planning literature and the common statement was that the emergence of shopping centers abates the viability of city centers and shopping streets. However, in time, the shopping streets have adapted to the changes, thus become more resilient to the negative impacts of shopping centers. The current planning literature has been limited to the analysis of either shopping center systems, or shopping streets. In contrast to this approach, in this study, we are analyzing both retail venues, and comparing their consumer profiles, preferences and spatial behaviors. The purpose is to exhibit the strengths and weaknesses of shopping centers and shopping streets, and identify the qualifications attractive to their customers. This will provide an opportunity for urban policy makers to redefine a retail policy framework which will contribute to shopping street resilience and city center viability. Ankara is selected for two reasons: (1) as of 2011, the shopping center gross leasable area per 1000 people was the highest in Turkey, (2) the city center is still vivid, and shopping street retailers continue to survive amid the high level of shopping center floor space. Two separate questionnaires were given in 13 shopping centers, and 11 main shopping streets in Ankara. The findings reveal that: (1) shopping centers are used by consumers from all districts, in particular, from suburban districts, and shopping streets are mainly used by consumers living in inner city districts, (2) the consumer profiles of shopping centers and shopping streets are distinctive in terms of age, occupation and education, (3) shopping centers are usually preferred by car owners, which encourages development of new shopping centers at the urban fringe, (4) shopping centers and shopping streets are preferred for similar purposes, and shopping streets, in particular, are preferred for entertainment. Therefore, the major conclusion is that the shopping streets in Ankara have a certain level of resilience in terms of consumer diversity, retailer variety, quality and complementary degree. This level can be further increased by new retail planning policies that will focus on attracting consumers from different backgrounds, offering a conducive business environment for special brands, and initiating new revitalization plans and programs for maintenance and design of city centers.     

Spatial resilience and urban planning: Addressing the interdependence of urban retail areas

In this article we look at examples of three predominant kinds of Swedish retail places – the pedestrianised city centre, the neighbourhood centre and the regional shopping mall – all of which play important (winning or losing) roles in contemporary retail development. This investigation is based on an empirical study of the Malmö region (in southern Sweden) and the findings suggest that the different retail areas are developing independently following the logic of their own business. They have failed to relate their business to the retailscape of the urban region. We also develop spatial resilience as a concept that can be used to acknowledge the interdependence of different retail areas in discussions of urban and regional planning. We argue that more fluid or associative means of stabilisation seem to be overlooked in the present strategies for retail resilience, leaving more classical network stabilization as the only means of choice.     

The role of ethnic retailing in retrofitting suburbia: case studies from Toronto,Canada

Today’s immigrants to Canada are increasingly and directly settling into suburban areas of major cities; a trend that has resulted in new retail opportunities: suburban ethnic shopping centres are a growing phenomenon in areas with major immigrant settlement. This paper discusses the development and retrofitting processes of three suburban Chinese shopping malls in the Toronto area. The paper explores how these malls successfully regenerated areas once affected by business decline and how they can act as a catalyst to develop a new urban form that makes the suburban landscape less uniform and more sustainable. Various perspectives from key players involved in ethnic retail activities and developments were collected, including surveys with entrepreneurs and shoppers, and semi-structured interviews with city councillors, city planners, developers and an architect. The paper suggests that municipalities could invest in established ethnic retail places as an innovative means of “retrofitting suburbia.”     

Planning in the Ethno-culturally Diverse City: A Comment

This article examines how major retailers, in their attempts to secure sites for very large stores (over 7000 m2 sales area), have had to adopt new strategies in order to overcome resistance from local authority and central government retail planning policy. These strategies include recycling of old retail developments with ‘open A1 consent’, participation in urban regeneration projects and development or redevelopment of ‘district shopping centres’ in urban areas. Discussion of these strategies reveals weaknesses and inconsistencies in retail planning policy in the UK.     

Shopping Streets or Malls: Changes in Retail Form in Melbourne and Brisbane

Retail facilities are a critical element of urban form often given insufficient scrutiny. While retail form has implications for matters such as consumer accessibility, quality of service and transport, there have been comparatively few investigations into the nature of retail form in Australia. The spread of the enclosed shopping mall is an international phenomenon of the last 50 years that has been embraced or resisted to various degrees in different cities across the world. Utilising data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics retail census and the Property Council of Australia, this article investigates the extent to which retailing in Brisbane and Melbourne is now dominated by corporately controlled shopping malls. The research builds a profile of each city's retail form, comprehensively at the time of the last retail census in 1992, and of the corporately controlled centres more recently in 2008. Results show that while Melbourne has retained a greater number of traditional shopping centres, the floorspace in corporate centres has substantially increased. Brisbane has a greater proportion of its retailing floorspace within malls. In both cities there is a significant concentration of the management of corporate centres in the hands of a few large corporations.     

Consumerscapes and the resilience assessment of urban retail systems

Despite the plethora of studies on the behavior and values of consumers, research in the social sciences tends to sideline the role of the cultural dimension of consumption in the assessment of vitality and resilience of urban retail systems. However, given the tendency for retailers to make consumers a key element in their strategies, the cultural approach seems to be a valuable alternative to firm-centric analysis. This paper seeks to face this challenge mobilizing the lens of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). The aim is to show why consumerscapes matter in the assessment of urban retail resilience. According to Arnould (2005), CCT allows us to capture the motivating social and cultural contexts of retail patronage and purchasing behaviors and the myriad of motivating factors behind the retail purchase decision. People have a variety of projects that they tend to realize through shopping practices and consumption, and retailers offer the range of resources they need to accomplish such projects. Bearing these ideas in mind, we suggest that in order to assess the resilience of urban retailing we need to know the extent to which the different shopping districts provide consumers with the range of resources they want so as to fulfill their projects, and how retailers and public authorities can, in the long term, sustain or improve the levels of consumer satisfaction. These ideas are discussed both in a theoretical and empirical way supported by the data collected from consumer surveys carried out in three neighborhood shopping districts in Greater Lisbon.     

浅谈购物中心建筑设计中容易忽视的几个重要问题

本文结合作者十余年购物中心建筑设计经验,针对目前国内已建购物中心中折射出的共性设计问题,站在更宏观的城市发展视野,提出了一定的分析见解;这些问题分析涉及购物中心动线设计逻辑性和商业体验特性、购物中心建筑设计与城市交通设计的关系、购物中心立面设计与后期招商调整的关系、购物中心地库设计与绿色低碳发展策略的关系;对提高我国的购物中心乃至大型综合体类建筑设计水平具有一定的参考意义。     

零售业区位理论角度的城市商业建筑规划

通过对道路、交通、兴趣区和零售业场所布局的关系分析,围绕零售业场所布局基本因素的人性化设计手法,结合天津城市商业建筑实例,探讨未来城市商业建筑的规划方法与购物空间的人性化设计趋势。     

RESILIENT URBAN DESIGN METHODS AND PRINCIPLES BASED ON THE COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM THEORY

Uncertainty exists in the current urban development of contemporary cities and is getting diversified and complicated. Identifying and adapting to such uncertainty is partly defining the future development of urban planning and design. The concept of “resilient city” is developed from the current scientific demands in urban planning and design. This article suggests that Complex Adaptive System as a new system theory would help resilient city planning and construction. According to the Complex Adaptive System theory, a resilient city should possess the adaptability of its components, diversity, autonomy, appropriate redundancy, slow-variable management, and identification, in order to improve the ecological, social, and economic resilience and vitality of the city.     

Underground landscape: The urbanism and infrastructure of Toronto’s downtown pedestrian network

Beneath the surface of the streets of Toronto lies a sprawling labyrinth that serves over 100,000 people every day and countless tourists and visitors. One of the city’s most under-valued urban spaces, Toronto’s underground is remarkably the largest underground shopping complex in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 30 km of shopping tunnels and retail nodes. Since the 1970s, this underground system has grown and multiplied beneath the surface of the city with relatively little intervention from city planners. This article discusses the development pattern of the underground as a network and the future it holds as an important urban infrastructure.     

The Two Federal Lands of Berlin-Brandenburg: A European Region on its Way to Sustainable Development

Local decision-makers face a wide range of pressures over questions of urban development. Among these is to pursue urban economic growth, while simultaneously responding to environmental demands to reduce car usage. There is, however, a lack of empirical studies analysing urban entrepreneurialism in conjunction with car-use reduction. This paper focuses on city-centre development and regulation of retail trade in two Norwegian cities. The underlying logic is that while compact city development and concentration of commerce in the urban core are ways to reduce car usage, there are also pressures drawing shopping to the city outskirts. The paper highlights the conflicting spatial interests involved in policies for car-use reduction, as evident in discussions as to how to regulate parking throughout the urban area. The paper also shows how municipal policy for car-use reduction is affected by private actors and neighbouring municipalities. Ultimately, the cases illustrate how local decision-making is influenced by the balance of pressures for and against environmental policy. In this way, analysis of inter-municipal competition over retail trade, inhabitants and investments, provides important insights into urban policy and practice.     

Shopping centres in decline: analysis of demalling in Lisbon

Cities and retail are intrinsically connected and in evolution. Malling in the United States is characterised by the peripheral implementation of large shopping centres in close connection with urban sprawl that characterise the urban development of that country. However, in a process that has been gaining relevance, several shopping centres have declined. A practice commonly referred to as demalling emerged, through which shopping centres began to be redeveloped to acquire new functions. Although more incipient, in Europe this process is just now evolving as some shopping centres begin to decline becoming dead malls. The aim of this article is to explore demalling, unfolding evidences of such practice in this latter geographical context. Based on a case study methodology, we developed fieldwork in Lisbon municipality and analysed 55 shopping centres. Our main results stress the low economic viability of the majority of these retail precincts and uncovered that several redevelopment measures are already in place, framing the demalling process of that city. Overall, two main categories of interventions were unfolded, both of which possess similarities to the measures implemented in North America: (i) moving out, in which the shopping centre appropriates part of the public space; (ii) functional requalification, in which other functions become relevant to the detriment of the previous exclusive commercial function.     

消费与当代城市空间发展——以欧美城市为例

在消费社会,欧美城市已由生产中心向消费中心转型.在这一过程中,消费逐渐成为促进城市发展的有效工具.在美国,郊区购物中心和节庆消费场所在城市郊区化和内城复兴的过程中起着主导城市发展的作用.而在欧洲,通过"隐藏的购物中心"和文化规划,消费发展与城市认同从冲突走向了融合.     

Look up! Retailing, historic architecture and city centre distinctiveness

This paper considers the role of historic architecture in the creation of distinctiveness in urban shopping destinations as part of a move towards a more experiential focus by urban management initiatives. Utilising the concept of the servicescape, the paper suggests that distinctiveness may not be apparent at ground floor level, given the consistency of retail fascia design to reflect the chosen brand image and the rigidity with which centralised directives regarding window displays etc. are implemented. However, above ground level the real distinctiveness of the built environment dimension of the servicescape becomes apparent, and may contribute to differential advantage in an increasingly competitive retail environment.     

英国零售业规划政策评述

本文对英国零售业的规划政策进行了回顾与评述。在过去的20年间,英国零售业规划政策的一项核心内容是通过“城镇中心优先政策”来减少新型零售业态的扩张对城镇中心所带来的影响,从而保持与提高城镇中心的活力,并通过集约化使用土地达到可持续性发展。文章同时对规划政策制定过程中的五大矛盾进行了阐述。研究表明,“城镇中心优先政策“的执行受到近年来经济衰退和其他经济结构变化的影响和干扰。对很多人而言,城镇中心不再是他们日常生活的主要场所。在网购和手机购物直行的今天,现行的零售规划政策必须与时俱进,做出适当调整和改变。同时,许多经营大店的零售商正在反思和重估大店赖以生存的社会经济条件,并减少对大店的投资。     

Town and transport planning and the development of retail trade in metropolitan areas of West Germany

Town and transport planning have a strong influence on retail trade and, on the other hand, often are influenced themselves by the needs of retail trade. It seems that differences in planning legislation, political and entrepreneurial goals have resulted, in Germany, in a process different from many other nations, especially from the USA. The American model had been followed until the middle of the seventies with strong suburbanization, car oriented transportation planning and the fast diffusion of free standing shopping centres and hypermarkets. Since then new shopping centres and hypermarkets are smaller and in most cases integrated into existing urban centres, traffic planning in Metropolitan areas gives priority to public transport and downtown is converted step by step into a large pedestrian precinct (often 4–6 km network of pedestrian streets). Car use by visitors of department stores since 1965 has had only a very modest increase in downtowns of cities with more than 500 000 residents owing to enormous investments into public transport (in small cities, in contrast, car use increased dramatically). Comparisons of the means of transport, used by downtown customers in cities with more than 500 000 residents, show great differences which, in many ways, are caused by different town and transport planning. Pedestrianization, changes in lifestyles towards a cost-industrial society, investments of retailers at downtown sites and the improved accessibility by subway and suburban railway systems (in some cases also by improved streetcars) have helped German downtowns to remain vital. This can be seen from increasing numbers of pedestrians downtown. Munich and Nuremberg are described as examples of this success.     

Assessing the long-term performance of the urban cores in four New Urbanist communities

This research assesses the business composition and morphological characteristics of four mature cores in suburban developments following the principles of New Urbanism. All contain a few stores offering basic convenience goods but lack a full array of retail options. Professional services fill many of the spaces, especially healthcare and finance. Census data indicate that local populations are insufficient to support much retail activity if customers are expected to come from the surrounding residential neighbourhoods. The results demonstrate the need to better integrate commercial cores with the surrounding urban fabric and to consider contemporary retail conditions when planning New Urbanist developments.     

The new century: Lessons learned from Singapore's shopping sector during the 1990's

Singapore's main shopping corridor, Orchard Road, is being challenged as the international shopping paradise for residents and visitors. It no longer reigns supreme as the mecca for international shopping. The loss of prestige and dominance can be attributed to recent shifts in the Singaporean and regional marketplace such as: economic recession, tourism industry slump, societal concerns, technological trends and innovations, shopping sector development in the region, and political uncertainty, etc. Within Singapore, the restructuring of the retail shopping sector from one dominated by the Orchard Road Corridor to one including several satellite shopping centers in the “New Cities” creates additional severe competition for retail customers.  This paper examines the spatial relationships and structure of Singapore's shopping centers and their impact on the Orchard Road corridor. The article highlights selected theories, models, and techniques developed for planning shopping center locations and determining store site selection in an attempt to discover applications for the Singapore shopping scene. The paper also examines environmental conditions that create challenges for the retail shopping industry during the new millenneum: for example, the effects of economic events, government policy changes, visitor pattern shifts, and the changing shopping habits of Singaporeans. While the focus is primarily on problems and opportunities for Singapore's retailers in the main shopping corridor, the implications for the additional surburban centers emerging along mass transit routes in major housing developments are discussed briefly. Finally, plans to counteract the current sluggish market conditions and reposition and revitalizing the centers along Orchard Road to enhance competitiveness for the new millennium, are discussed.     

河段尺度下的城市渠化河道近自然化策略研究

河流近自然化治理的理念正在逐步拓展和实现,对于仍在高速发展的中国来说,预示着传统的技术手段到了需要革新的时代。河流系统是多重等级系统,本文选取河段尺度的城市渠化河流作为研究对象,确定渠化河流的形态特征、功能特征和空间特征,并以此将渠化河流分为3类,即空间紧缩的、有弹性余地的和有较大空间拓展的河道。论文基于大量的基础研究和工程考察,对应3类河道,创新的提出城市紧缩型河道策略、城市弹性型河道策略和城市开拓型河道策略。该策略体系的总结是应对未来中国城市渠化河流改造趋势的一个重要的探索与努力。     

美国双城地区购物中心的发展与规划

明尼苏达州双城地区是美国中西部最大的都市区之一,购物中心的发展在这里有比较特殊的历史。本文介绍双城地区购物中心的发展历史与现状（包括购物中心的种类、分布和发展挑战）,并探讨了购物中心的规划。购物中心的规划与城市管治的模式关系密切。和美国很多其他都市区一样,双城地区的城市管治有着显著的分散化、分权化和自由化的特征。同时,都市区内各个城市之间彼此独立但又相互合作,有专门的组织（譬如大都市理事会）负责规划、协调都市区的整体发展。在研究购物中心的规划时,文章首先介绍购物中心的规划过程、规划的主要参与者及资金来源;然后分析了公众参与、城市发展规划（特别是土地利用规划和交通规划）和区域经济政策（特别是《财政分税法案》）对购物中心发展的影响。毫无疑问,购物中心对城市的发展也有重要影响。最后,文章还简要讨论了双城地区购物中心的发展对城市人口分布以及城市交通发展的影响。