City-center retail: where is the strategy?

The legitimacy of local authorities to organize retail activities in their downtown areas is no longer challenged. This is a good thing, but are the measures proposed by the French government going to help them in this task? More importantly, what is the underlying strategy? And how do these measures give meaning to the word ‘strategy’?  

The proposals from the report on revitalizing city-centres presented to the French Secretary for Commerce are a step in the right direction, calling for a balanced, comprehensive, coordinated, forward-looking strategy based on expertise.

The assessment of what is causing the endemic vacancy in downtown areas of medium-sized cities also seems well founded. The factors include a lack of local public strategy, ineffective regional planning, conflicts of interest between public and private-sector players, the inability of towns to take action at the right level with regard to land-use transformation, and the challenges small shops face due to digital technology.

The report’s authors come to the conclusion that “though retail is first and foremost the business of shopkeepers, it is up to the city and county elected officials to undertake and implement a comprehensive strategy tailored to the situation in their region and central districts.”

So far, so good! Yet the report, which proposes a series of remedies in the form of aid or regulatory changes, maintains an overly technocratic approach to solutions at the local scale. It stops short of its logical conclusion.

Does this mean there is only one possible strategy? The proposed mechanisms are mainly defensive in nature: postpone large-scale real estate projects, demand impact studies, preserve existing businesses, provide aid, and so on. Is the aim here to prop up a structurally fragile status quo, or rather to support true change?  If this protective rationale prevails, will elected officials courageous enough to make more proactive and ambitious (and potentially more painful) choices find supporters?

Where is the fundamental question of profitability addressed? Supporting retail without ensuring that shop owners and investors make a profit – at least in the medium term – is at once useless and costly. If the strategy does not aim for profitability, there is little to no chance that any of the ventures will survive.

What power should elected officials have? It takes enormous political will to lead a retail development strategy. This is one of the most complex areas of public action. Why not start by encouraging elected officials to take action by completely overhauling the County Commission for Commercial Development (CDAC) system, which is unwieldy, disempowering and ill-suited to the challenges retail is facing today.

Strategy is a difficult art to master, especially when it comes to implementation. If we wish to help cities breathe new life into their retail sector, the time has come to be a bit less technocratic and a little more pragmatic and operational.