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Street Commerce: Creating Vibrant Urban Sidewalks (City in the Twenty-First Century) - Hardcover

Buch 40 von 53: The City in the Twenty-First Century

Sevtsuk, Andres

 
9780812252200: Street Commerce: Creating Vibrant Urban Sidewalks (City in the Twenty-First Century)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0812252209 ISBN 13: 9780812252200
Verlag: UNIV OF PENNSYLVANIA PR, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

A comprehensive analysis of the issues involved in planning for and facilitating successful street commerce

Street commerce has gained prominence in urban areas, where demographic shifts such as increasing numbers of single people and childless "empty nesters," along with technological innovations enabling greater flexibility of work locations and hours, have changed how people shop and dine out. Contemporary city dwellers are demanding smaller-scale stores located in public spaces that are accessible on foot or by public transit. At the same time, the emergence of online retail undermines both the dominance and viability of big-box discount businesses and drives brick and mortar stores to focus as much on the experience of shopping as on the goods and services sold. Meanwhile, in many developing countries, the bulk of urban retail activity continues to take place on the street, even as new car-oriented shopping centers are on the rise. In light of such trends, street commerce will play an important role in twenty-first-century cities, particularly in producing far-reaching benefits for the environment and local communities.

Although street commerce is deeply intertwined with myriad contemporary urban visions and planning goals—walkability, quality of life, inclusion, equity, and economic resilience—it has rarely been the focus of systematic research and informed practice. In Street Commerce, Andres Sevtsuk presents a comprehensive analysis of the issues involved in implementing successful street commerce. Drawing on economic theory, urban design principles, regulatory policies, and merchant organization models, he conceptualizes key problems and offers innovative solutions. He provides a range of examples from around the world to detail how different cities and communities have bolstered and reinvigorated their street commerce. According to Sevtsuk, successful street commerce can only be achieved when the private sector, urban policy makers, planners, and the public are equipped with the relevant knowledge and tools to plan and regulate it.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Andres Sevtsuk is Professor of Urban Science and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Introduction

On a sunny Sunday morning in London, my wife and I were having coffee and making plans for the day. We both had to take care of some shopping—she needed a dress from a store she likes, I had looked up some shoes and jeans online but wanted to try them on in person. We thought of having brunch in a park with friends and doing something fun in the afternoon.

Leaving the house, we walked through our neighborhood to Upper Street, the nearest high street, as they call main streets in the UK. We figured we should be able to take care of all the shopping there, given the choice of numerous clothing stores and a small urban shopping center at Angel Station. Sure enough, after checking Google Maps on our phones, we found a number of stores that she trusted for dresses and I for jeans and shoes. We walked by an eclectic mix of businesses, including a flower store, a local ice-cream maker, and a pop-up designer boutique—as well as several pubs full of Arsenal fans, whose home stadium wasn't far away. Within half an hour of browsing, we had both nailed what we were looking for. We then decided to grab some coffee to go from Coffee Works and caught a bus to Victoria Park, where there is a charming café called the Pavilion that reminds me of the Boat House in New York's Central Park with a more casual atmosphere. On a Sunday morning, it attracts joggers, parents pushing strollers, and occasional bohemians.

Celebrating our shopping success, we met up with our friends who lived close by for brunch. At some point, the conversation drifted to a new Russian film our friends had recently read about called Leviathan. It had just won the Palm d'Or in Cannes. We started wondering whether any theater in London would be screening it. As an independent festival film, it was not one you would expect to find in Odeon, Vue, or AMC-type theaters. Reaching again for Google in our pockets, we learned, to our surprise, that five different theaters were playing it that very afternoon in London.

We picked out the Curzon Theater in SoHo, which we had never visited before, but which had a screening in 45 minutes and seemed perfect. We walked to the Central Line, and within thirty minutes or so, we got off at Tottenham Court Road, a few hundred yards from the theater, and made it just in time for the opening titles.

It was a good film. At the end, it took us some time to get out, since the plot had sunk us both deep into thought about the intractable scale of corruption in post-Soviet Russia. As we finally made our way past the bar, out onto Shaftesbury Avenue, my wife suddenly remembered that she had also wanted to get some Erik Satie scores for piano. "Should we look up music stores in SoHo or head home? We have guests coming over for dinner soon," she said. We decided to head home, noticing that the 38 bus stop, which would take us right back, was just down the block. As we turned the corner and walked along Charing Cross Road to the bus, we came across Foyles—a popular bookstore in the UK. Because it was right at the bus stop, we decided to pop in and ask if they had any piano scores. If they did, we thought to ourselves, we would be unlikely to find Satie's, but at least they might be able to suggest where else to look.

The lady behind the counter told us to check the music section on the third floor. We took the stairs, walking past two floors packed with literature from all over the world, and arrived on the third, full of music-related publications. Another clerk pointed us to a set of large-format metal drawers at the end of the room, which looked promising. I walked over and opened a drawer. It was full of Bach and Brahms scores. The next one was full of Chopin. A few cabinets down, there were Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Tubin. And then, under "S," I discovered a whole collection of Satie scores. This was completely unexpected. My wife had only thought of Satie five minutes earlier and neither of us imagined coming across a whole collection right there. She chose her favorite pieces, and with the scores in hand, we descended back down to Charing Cross Road and caught the bus home.

As we stared through the front window on the bus's upper deck, we passed through tree-lined streets bustling with businesses and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds. We discussed our amazement that we had been able to find all we needed within a few hours in the city—we both found the garments we were looking for; Leviathan was playing not only in Curzon, but in four other theaters; we stumbled upon a store selling Satie scores; we encountered interesting people and businesses we hadn't seen before along the way; each bus or train that we took was no more than a couple of blocks away; and we still planned to stop by a vegetable stall near our house to pick up tomatoes, peaches, and fresh dates from Iran for dinner. We wondered whether all this had something to do with London's claim to being the greatest city in the world.

Napoleon is said to have called England a nation of shopkeepers. The shops and services that London offers, and the convenience with which they are connected on foot and by public transit, certainly capture in a very palpable manner the convenience, diversity and all-around quality of life that the city offers. I have seen a shop dedicated to umbrellas in London — hundreds and hundreds of different umbrellas — a store selling only hats, and a taxidermy store selling full-scale mounted animals. There are restaurants that specialize in Georgian, Burmese, Ethiopian, Nepalese, or Singaporean cuisine, as well as fancy department stores such as Fortnum & Mason or Harrods that attract people from all over the world.

But this wide-ranging choice of merchandise and services is not all that street commerce offers. Our stroll along streets rich in people and businesses in London that morning allowed us not only to run errands efficiently and conveniently, it also put us in contact with lots of different experiences we had not planned on encountering—people of different backgrounds and interests, businesses selling odd things, poignant smells from colorful restaurants, unexpected sights and conversations. During our brunch in Victoria Park, we overheard a conversation from a neighboring table about someone inheriting a trust fund. Walking through our neighborhood, my wife and I had peeked into people's houses and admired their kitchen furniture and tall ceilings. On the way out of the cinema, we had a brief conversation with someone from Russia.

Bustling streets, rich in amenities, are social condensers that pull people together regardless of their race, class, age, or religious belief, even if only for brief moments. Unlike the workplaces, families, political organizations, or faith groups that we are either born into or choose to be part of, the people and businesses we encounter walking down city streets are not united around shared kinship ties, interests, or beliefs. Bustling streets put us in touch with "others" who do not necessarily share the same beliefs, interests, or values with us. By fostering dialogic social exchange, streets are part of the glue that holds an urban society together. The more they make us interact, the more we understand and appreciate each other.

In a famous sociological article published in 1977, Mark Granovetter demonstrated the importance of "weak" ties in urban societies. By strong ties he meant the connections we have through our families, colleagues, or other groups we meet on a daily or weekly basis. Weak ties, on the other hand, describe people we meet or talk to only a couple of times a year—at a conference, an event, or just serendipitously on the street. Granovetter demonstrated that weak social ties are more important for social mobility and for spreading information across society...

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Verlag
UNIV OF PENNSYLVANIA PR
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0812252209
ISBN 13 
9780812252200
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
296
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Mare Nostrum Group B.V.
gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk

Doelen 72
Breda
4831 GR
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