Retail and authenticity: continued

Arundel Mills, Maryland. Baltimore Sun photo by Lloyd Fox.

A roundup of sorts. First, the ongoing discussion of the need to rebuild the capacity of independents. I talk with officials and developer representatives about this every chance I get, but they aren't ready to focus on the systemic issues. Until we do so, nothing will really change.

A couple best practice examples show a way forward, the Historic Downtown Los Angeles Retail Project and the Neighborhood Restaurant Initiative in Boston.

Apparently my presentation in Arlington County in early December still resonates. We'll see what develops there. I'll pop in to the Clarendon Alliance annual meeting in February and do some more proselytizing.

To rebuild the infrastructure I think we need to reach out beyond individual municipalities, because too many communities are too small to have the scale necessary to make this work. I would hope that the National League of Cities or similar associations of municipal governments could focus on this.

Second, there have been some great articles lately about the angst involved in chaining up.

-- Adam Gopnik wrote in the New Yorker, in the piece "Gothamitis" that:

It is the sense that the city’s recovery has come at the cost of a part of its identity: that New York is safer and richer but less like itself, an old lover who has gone for a face-lift and come out looking like no one in particular. The wrinkles are gone, but so is the face. This transformation is one you see on every street corner in Manhattan, and now in Brooklyn, too, where another local toy store or smoked-fish emporium disappears and another bank branch or mall store opens. For the first time in Manhattan’s history, it has no bohemian frontier. Another bookstore closes, another theatre becomes a condo, another soulful place becomes a sealed residence. These are small things, but they are the small things that the city’s soul clings to.

... Only twenty-five years ago, a walk from Tribeca to SoHo and the Lower East Side would show as many kinds and classes—rich, aspiring, immigrant—as it had a century before; now that walk is likely to show only the same six stores and the same two banks and the same one shopper.

New York, as generations have been taught by the late Jane Jacobs, is a self-organizing place that fixes itself. But let the additional truth be told that though the life of the block is self-organizing, the block itself that lets life happen was made by the hand of a city planner. As the Mayor said, and knows, what we want the city to look like in 2030 will depend on the rules we make now.

(Thanks to Reid for sending me this article.)

-- this sentiment is also being expressed in Paris, as reported by Der Spiegel in the article "Champs Elysées Risks Losing its Soul." From the article:

Now this symbol is facing a new danger -- the rampant onslaught of cheap stores is eating away at the avenue's charm. Cafés and bistros have given way to pizzerias and fast-food joints; astronomical rents -- between €5,000 and €10,000 per square meter, are pushing out traditional restaurants and cinemas. Instead the street is dominated by luxury shops, like the pompous Louis Vuitton store, or giant mega-stores for the Gap, Nike or Adidas. "The Champs Elysées is being colonized," a Paris blog exclaims, "and the French aren't lifting a finger."

Will all of Paris soon be in the inescapable stranglehold of international brands? Perhaps not, now that the left-wing city government has openly declared its opposition.

The city government recently commissioned a study by a London consultancy, Clipperton Development, and were alarmed by the results. The urban planning gave their diagnosis for Paris: A dangerous monoculture was developing on the avenue -- 102 of the 332 shops were only selling clothes. If the onward march of fashion centers, huge sports stores and high street clothing chains wasn't halted, then the British experts warned that the Paris landmark risked becoming just a "banal supermarket."

-- relatedly, the New York Times has a piece on upscale chains moving from Manhattan into Brooklyn and Queens. The article, "Now, Big-Name Retail Chains Will Take the Other Boroughs, Too," has a great map of Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens, which really shows the impact of chains. And Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens have incredible independent retail. (Granted they've had chains, especially supermarkets and department stores, for decades too.)

Third, Kennedy Smith reported on an e-list that the hottest retail areas in the U.S. have a retail mix of about 15% chains. If we did similar studies in DC, comparable to what the Times did in Astoria, or the study commissioned by the Paris government of the Champs Elysées, what would we find?

Fourth, speaking of chains, despite the profit repatriation issue, I am not inalterably opposed. For example, what about trying to attract this new American Girl store concept--more entertainment and interaction--to the area in L'Enfant Plaza around the forthcoming National Children's Museum. It might be too much of a retail desert. But it could complement the Museum, and benefit from proximity to the National Mall and the Smithsonian Museums. Especially if additional children's related retail could be garnered. See "American Girl to Open New Retail Concept in Dallas, Atlanta" from Design and Display Ideas.

Index Keywords: retail