Begone, Euclid! Leasing Custom and Zoning Provision Engaging Retail Consumer Tastes and Technologies in Thriving Urban Centers

Abstract

Technology capacity and innovations conflate notions of private and public spaces; the latter today incorporate the Internet “lane,” while private spaces seek access to that pathway. Merchants and their landlords seemingly find themselves in a paradox. They must embrace consumer technology expectations to populate mercantile premises as public spaces. At the same time, merchants must make stores and restaurants places of novelty to grip the attention of customers seeking to share the intimacy of their experience with everyone. Technology presents physical retailing with its greatest threat while potentially becoming its strongest ally if properly channeled. Advocates for urban centers’ sustained vitality must translate into action technology and communications currents to retain merchandising’s vital role in place-making in CBDs, downtowns and similar densely developed community gathering places. This essay describes how stakeholders, including city and town administrators, must imprint public and private spaces (like retailing premises) to produce sustained demand for physical merchandising in dynamic community hives through innovative land use regulations and ICT management policies.