Beyond Retail: Envisioning the Future of Retail

As thousands of retail establishments close in cities on both sides of the Atlantic, we face a future where non-retail uses will become an increasingly signifi cant and permanent part of our urban main streets.1 After decades of simmering urban retail decline, the demise of physical retailers in cities has accelerated in recent decades due to the rise of e-commerce and in recent years due to the eff ects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most European main streets now cope with double-digit storefront vacancy rates and over a fi fth of Manhatt an’s storefronts were vacant at the end of 2021 (Mischler and Persichett i, 2021). In many disinvested neighbourhoods, vacancy is the defi ning characteristic of once thriving main streets.