Learning from an adaptive resilient local street: Ensuring town centre vibrancy through diverse modes of shopping
Aslan, Devrim Umut LU
(2025)
In Cities
166.
- Abstract
- The spatial organisation of shopping and retail has been transformed significantly since the 1980s, commonly being conceptualised as ‘retail decentralisation.’ This shift involves the displacement of retail from town centres to out-of-town establishments and, more recently, to digital platforms, creating a noticeable vacuum. Consequently, the topic of the ‘death of town centres’ has become a significant public concern over the past four decades, particularly in post-industrial countries. While the socioeconomic repercussions of this phenomenon have been extensively explored and debated, the focus has primarily been on upmarket shopping streets in town centres. The changing dynamics of non-mainstream urban shopping sites, as well as how... (More)
- The spatial organisation of shopping and retail has been transformed significantly since the 1980s, commonly being conceptualised as ‘retail decentralisation.’ This shift involves the displacement of retail from town centres to out-of-town establishments and, more recently, to digital platforms, creating a noticeable vacuum. Consequently, the topic of the ‘death of town centres’ has become a significant public concern over the past four decades, particularly in post-industrial countries. While the socioeconomic repercussions of this phenomenon have been extensively explored and debated, the focus has primarily been on upmarket shopping streets in town centres. The changing dynamics of non-mainstream urban shopping sites, as well as how shopping is conducted in these places, have surprisingly been overlooked. In particular, there is a very limited understanding of these sites in small to mid-sized cities, and the shopping activities enacted there. This omission is notable, considering the fact that many of these non-mainstream shopping sites have maintained their vibrancy and conviviality throughout this process, offering valuable lessons. This paper investigates one such case: Södergatan, a local shopping street situated in a multicultural district of Helsingborg, a mid-sized city in Sweden. Utilising both a shopping-as-practice approach and video ethnographic methodology, the paper scrutinises and categorises five major modes of shopping enacted along this street: ‘convenience shopping,’ ‘social shopping,’ ‘embedded shopping,’ ‘alternative shopping,’ and ‘budget shopping.’ The findings suggest that the sensomaterial and spatiotemporal flexibility and adaptability of a shopping site would both enable and encourage diverse modes of shopping. The bundling of multiple shopping modes, in turn, can imbue the shopping site with vibrancy and resilience. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/190db420-b5f0-4507-af68-161c0a227b86
- author
- Aslan, Devrim Umut
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-07-07
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Cities
- volume
- 166
- article number
- 106222
- publisher
- Elsevier
- ISSN
- 1873-6084
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.cities.2025.106222
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 190db420-b5f0-4507-af68-161c0a227b86
- date added to LUP
- 2025-08-25 12:14:20
- date last changed
- 2025-08-26 08:04:23
@article{190db420-b5f0-4507-af68-161c0a227b86,
abstract = {{The spatial organisation of shopping and retail has been transformed significantly since the 1980s, commonly being conceptualised as ‘retail decentralisation.’ This shift involves the displacement of retail from town centres to out-of-town establishments and, more recently, to digital platforms, creating a noticeable vacuum. Consequently, the topic of the ‘death of town centres’ has become a significant public concern over the past four decades, particularly in post-industrial countries. While the socioeconomic repercussions of this phenomenon have been extensively explored and debated, the focus has primarily been on upmarket shopping streets in town centres. The changing dynamics of non-mainstream urban shopping sites, as well as how shopping is conducted in these places, have surprisingly been overlooked. In particular, there is a very limited understanding of these sites in small to mid-sized cities, and the shopping activities enacted there. This omission is notable, considering the fact that many of these non-mainstream shopping sites have maintained their vibrancy and conviviality throughout this process, offering valuable lessons. This paper investigates one such case: Södergatan, a local shopping street situated in a multicultural district of Helsingborg, a mid-sized city in Sweden. Utilising both a shopping-as-practice approach and video ethnographic methodology, the paper scrutinises and categorises five major modes of shopping enacted along this street: ‘convenience shopping,’ ‘social shopping,’ ‘embedded shopping,’ ‘alternative shopping,’ and ‘budget shopping.’ The findings suggest that the sensomaterial and spatiotemporal flexibility and adaptability of a shopping site would both enable and encourage diverse modes of shopping. The bundling of multiple shopping modes, in turn, can imbue the shopping site with vibrancy and resilience.}},
author = {{Aslan, Devrim Umut}},
issn = {{1873-6084}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{07}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Cities}},
title = {{Learning from an adaptive resilient local street: Ensuring town centre vibrancy through diverse modes of shopping}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106222}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.cities.2025.106222}},
volume = {{166}},
year = {{2025}},
}