Economic

The actors that contribute to this retail are “prospective and existing residents, tourists, visitors, consumers and employees” (Teller & Elms, 2012, p. 546) considering these actors’ specific land use is planned. Study by Warnes and Daniels, shows that although trip frequency to retail shops is a very important indicator of consumer behavior, the most promising of the findings was that consumers tend to shop closest to where they live (Warnes & Daniels, 1980). This trend is mostly for daily and weekly shopping, and while basic consumer goods tend to be renewed more often, special consumer goods are renewed once in a couple of years, meaning that people tend to travel longer

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distances for special consumer goods, such as electronics or furniture (Taboroff, Botanova, & Filin, 2015).

Retail diversity and retail oriented planning is an important aspect in economic spatial planning. Retail has started to change as consumers have become car dependent, thus retail has transformed to bigger stores located away from the city center. Consequently the change in retail patterns have also changed and retail has become more than only satisfying the need of consumer goods, but an activity for leisure and entertainment.

Diversity in retail is crucial for attracting different consumers as the needs and wants change from person to person. Having a diverse set of retail options in an urban area creates possibilities of interaction of different consumer types and actors associated with urban economy. The diversity of the retail in an urban area also is determinant of the attractiveness especially central urban areas are more attractive for consumers, as they are easily accessible (“Retail planning and urban resilience – An introduction to the special issue,” 2014; Karlsson, Johansson, & Stough, 2010)

“it remains clear that the increased size of cities and their diversity are strongly associated with increased output, productivity, and growth. Large cities foster specialization in production and sustain a broader range of final products, increasing the returns of their firms and the well-being of their residents” (Quigley, 1998, p. 136)

Retail thus has effects on both economic integration and social integration as area of retail are also places for social cohesion. This can be seen specifically in neighborhood scale, as it is associated with reinforcing community ties thus strengthening social bonds and increasing the quality of life (“Retail planning and urban resilience – An introduction to the special issue,” 2014).

This change also affected the old city centers in urban areas, as urban heritage became prime spots for retail areas considering their nostalgic and historic qualities. These areas have been improved according to accessibility and transportation, trying to physically integrate it to the city wide transportation structure. Thus the investment,

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renewal and rehabilitation of these areas have been increasing. These areas now have also been put in the forefront of city, nation and international advertisement (“Retail planning and urban resilience – An introduction to the special issue,” 2014).

Production in urban areas are not only significant for the urban economy but are a place for retail and also possibility for labor. Urban economy is thus separated into two, the formal sector has a well-defined salary and wage while the informal sector is small scale producers and laborers, who are journeymen, unpaid workers, self-employed workers or laborers for small scale businesses. These two sectors are unlikely allies, as formal producers are at times kept alive with the help from the informal sector. Petty commodity production is created by the informal sector and is imperative to a society as it provides cheap service and products; and provides cheap labor especially for those underprivileged to work in the formal sector. The features of the informal sector is that it is small scale and mostly locally produced, with a target focusing on low income market; thus the existence of the informal sector is imperative for not only the formal market but the low income consumers (Forbes, 1981; Moser, 1978).

Most often with contemporary retail behavior, big shopping centers have taken over the smaller craftsman and artisans based in neighborhoods. Shopping centers have become more of a meeting spot rather than place of shopping (Warnes & Daniels, 1980). Another trend which has been evolving with the use of internet is e-shopping, or in other words internet shopping; which is taking over the classic understanding of retail from a spatial origin to an intangible delivery basis approach, in doing so eliminating social interaction and retail areas. This new way of retail, although handy, generate problems for local businesses and employment; and thus create problems for planning and land use (Taboroff et al., 2015).

For this research, the retail diversity will be targeted for cultural areas, more specifically citadel areas, and there integration with the city; thus focusing on subscale effects. Whether or not the retail distribution in and around the citadel areas is efficient

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or not will be observed along with production diversity. Consequently production diversity is vital to any urban area when attracting different retail actors, with more production such as it is in retail, people will tend to prefer to come to a diverse area of retail.