Full Description
Our street-level economy is undergoing dramatic change. Retailers are reeling from the rise of e-commerce, rising rents, and increasing storefront vacancies, along with a cultural shift from material to experiential consumerism. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to economic upheaval as commercial corridors and the small businesses they house face sweeping closures, bankruptcy, and job losses.
Streetlife brings together scholars who have been trying to make sense of the changing retail landscape at street level and what it means for urbanism's future. Streetlife pays special attention to the varied responses and policies that have emerged to address the competing realities of small business loss and neighbourhood needs. With case studies from the United States, as well as contributions covering Canada and Europe, this book demystifies the logic behind street-level urban retail and calls for better plans, designs, policies, and innovations to bolster sales.
Streetlife shows that now, more than ever before, we need to understand what makes our storefronts tick, what awaits them, and what we can do as planners, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to maintain retail as integral to urban lifestyle.
Contents
Introduction: The Urban Retail Predicament
Conrad Kickert and Emily Talen
Retail Trends and Transformations
The Life and Death of Retail: Insights from Firm Demography
Luc Anselin and Irene Farah
The Ups and Downs of Retail, 2000-2015
Kevin Credit, Irene Farah, and Luc Anselin
Commercial Gentrification: What Happens to Businesses and Services when the Neighborhood Changes?
Rachel Meltzer
The Case of E-Commerce
Bricks and Clicks
Liz Mack
The Changing Demand for Urban Retail Space: Evidence from Canada
Christopher Daniel and Tony Hernandez
Online Sales and the British Urban Retail Hierarchy
Colin Jones
The Survival of Mom-and-Pops
Small Business Survival: How and Why?
Vikas Mehta
Can Mom and Pop Stores Survive? A Survey of Small Retailers in Chicago
Emily Talen
What's in a Chain?: On Hipness, Corporate Stores, and False Dichotomies in Urban Life
Jeffrey Nathaniel Parker
Retail, Place, and Place-Making
Retail Scenes
Hyesun Jeong and Terry Clark
Main Street Morphology, Adaptability, and Resilience
Rosa Danenberg
Retail in the Mix
Matthew Carmona
Toward Solutions
Curating Main Streets: The Factors of Success
Michael W. Mehaffy and Tigran Haas
The Spatial Logic of Urban Retail
Conrad Kickert
The Future of American Urban Retail Real Estate
Heather Arnold
Conclusion: Urban Retail Redefined
Conrad Kickert and Emily Talen
