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.

► Different retail areas develop independently following their own logic and scale.
► Spatial resilience depends on the interrelation of different retail areas.
► Retail areas could benefit from more fluid ways of stabilisation.