Full Description
A comprehensive analysis of urban retail and consumption transformations across diverse global and under-represented contexts
In an era defined by rapid urbanization, technological innovation, and shifting consumption patterns, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the City, Retail and Consumption is an essential reference for scholars and practitioners alike. Thirty-four chapters by an international panel of experts address the critical need for a comprehensive, global perspective on the evolving relationship between urban life, retail formats, and consumption practices. The contributing authors trace the transformative impact of post-industrial and post-pandemic contexts on consumption districts, shopping malls, and public squares while highlighting the social, cultural, and environmental factors that underpin contemporary retail landscapes.
Moving beyond descriptive analysis, the Companion delves into the digitalization of urban retail and its ramifications for consumer behavior and placemaking. It examines omnichannel strategies, platform economies, and emerging phygital experiences that redefine how city dwellers shop, as well as the governance models shaping the future of shopping districts worldwide. The volume incorporates under represented regions from Asia, Latin America, and beyond—ensuring readers gain a truly inclusive understanding of urban retail dynamics.
A foundational text that illuminates current debates and charts promising avenues for future research, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the City, Retail and Consumption:
Presents an interdisciplinary framework combining geography, architecture, sociology, marketing, and urban planning perspectives
Analyzes the digitalization of retail, including omnichannel strategies, platform economies, and phygital experiences
Explores evolving consumption practices through the lenses of class, gender, ethnicity, and sensory experience
Investigates novel governance models for urban shopping districts and their policy implications
Integrates cutting-edge methods and detailed case studies to inform both scholarship and practice
Balancing theoretical rigor with practical insights, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the City, Retail and Consumption is indispensable for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students, and researchers in geography, architecture, urbanism, marketing, management, and sociology. It is an ideal textbook for Urban Geography, Retail Geography, Sociology of Consumption, and Sustainable Urban Design courses and serves as an invaluable reference for urban planners, retail consultants, and policy advisors.
Contents
1 Introduction
Daniel Paiva, Pedro Guimarães
PART 1. NEW READINGS ON CONTEMPORARY RETAIL LANDSCAPES.
2 The Recent Transformation of Central Squares: On the interrelation between retail, recreation and mobility
Mattias Kärrholm
3 Towards a research agenda for high street atmospheres
Chloe Steadman
4 Eventification and Urban Branding
Waldemar Cudny
5 Reinventing Shanghai's Shopping Centres in the Post-Covid Digital Era: A Tale of Creative Destruction
Fujie Rao, Weiting Qin, Yiwen Liu
6 Consuming heritage' in Tianjin's former international concessions: Leisure, tourism, and experiential shopping, between the local and the global
Maria GravariBarbas, Chensi Shen, Yue Lu, Sandra Guinand
7 Retail Ruins, Revisited
Jacob C. Miller
8 Key actors and factors in the evolution and diversification of shopping malls in Mexico City
José Gasca Zamora
9 The production of space and sociospatial fragmentation of consumption places
Cláudio Smalley Soares Pereira
PART 2. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGING CONSUMPTION PRACTICES.
10 Urban consumption, inequality and social conflict
Daniel Paiva
11 Retail, consumption, and gender
Liliana de Simone
12 Ethnic Retail Clusters in Helsinki: From Ethnification of Poverty to Socio-Economic Resilience
Hossam Hewidy, Johanna Lilius
13 Beyond Bricks and Mortar: The Evolving Neighbourhood Commercial Landscape in Toronto
Zhixi Cecilia Zhuang
14 Consuming an Urban Experience - Contemporary Applications of Pedestrianization and Public Space
Kelly Gregg
15 Consumption and urban emotions in a changing climate
Marcia Alves Soares da Silva, Diogo Marcelo Delben Ferreira de Lima
16 From No-Go to Must-See: Squatting, Touristification, and Fragile Atmospheres in Ljubljana
Sandi Abram, Nathan Siegrist
17 Indulgent sounds. Listening to sonic strategies to foster consumption within entertainment neighborhoods
Nicola Di Croce
18 Commensality, consumption and conviviality: Foodification and urban transformation in Funchal
Carlos Diogo Gomes
PART 3. THE DIGITALIZATION OF URBAN RETAIL AND CONSUMPTION.
19 Digital platforms and retail digitalization
Sina Hardaker, Han Chu
20 The impact of prosumers on the platform economy
Daniela Ferreira
21 Transformations in retail in the Digital Age: Dark Stores, Brick-and-Mortar Retailers, and Emerging Logistics Dynamic
Pedro Guimarães, Nuno Rodrigues
22 Brick-and-mortar and e-commerce: places, links, and consumer perspectives
Julie Horáková, Outi Uusitalo
23 Perception and consumption of extended reality (XR) content in urban spaces
Maciej Główczyński
24 Consuming Place through Location-Based Games
Jack Lowe
25 Phygitalisation: The New Frontier of Neighbourhood Retail in the Omnichannel Era
Herculano Cachinho
PART 4. THE GOVERNANCE OF URBAN CONSUMPTION SPACES.
26 Retailing and Place Management
Gary Warnaby, Steve Millington
27 Retail Policies in Southern European Context
Libera D'Alessandro, Rosario Sommella
28 Leaving the city, embracing the nation-state: Rethinking 'urban' policy mobilities through the example of business improvement districts
Diogo Gaspar Silva, Kevin Ward
29 Food Retailing and Consumption in Urban Areas
Leigh Sparks
30 Retail capital and urban tourism consumption in Mexico
Patricia Olivera
31 Superblock Barcelona: implications for the city retail structure
Lluís Frago, Alejandro Morcuende
32 Complexity in Governance of Commercial City Centres
Göktuğ Morçöl, Michele Tantardini, Arifur Rahman Bhuiyan
33 Afterword: The Death of the Urban Marketplace?
Sharon Zukin
34 Afterword
Teresa Barata-Salgueiro
Index
