Where Is the Café? The Challenge of Making Retail Uses Viable in Mixed-use Suburban Developments

Jill Grant and Katherine Perrott
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Jill Grant: Department of Planning, Dalhousie University, Box 1000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 2X4, Canada, jill.grant@dal.ca
Katherine Perrott: CBCL Limited Consultants, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, katherinep@cbcl.ca

Urban Studies, 2011, vol. 48, issue 1, 177-195

Abstract: Contemporary planners see mixing residential, retail and other compatible uses as an essential planning principle. This paper explores the challenges that planners, developers and municipal councillors encounter in trying to implement retail uses as part of the mix in suburban areas in three Canadian cities. The study finds that planners employ evolutionary theories of urban development to naturalise their normative visions of walkable and sociable communities. By contrast, developers point to consumer behaviour to explain why planners’ ideas on mix do not work. In a society where people shop at big-box outlets, making the local café or pub commercially viable proves increasingly challenging.

Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:48:y:2011:i:1:p:177-195

DOI: 10.1177/0042098009360232

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