Retail and the Revival of the Central City
Peter Hemmersam
Associate Professor Peter Hemmersam
Sustainable, design based urban and landscape development and
transformation is the key educational focus of the Institute of Ur-
banism and Landscape. Ecological sustainability is linked to envi-
ronmental issues and climate change, and social sustainability is
at the forefront in the institute’s focus on cities in the South, but
is also linked to issues of economic sustainability. In particular,
the Urban Design studio at the institute has a focus on the status
and future of rapidly changing Norwegian city centre districts.
For several decades shopping centres have been established
both inside and on the outskirts of both smaller and larger Nor-
wegian towns and cities. They often threaten the existing city
centre retail, and planners and politicians have been struggling
to find ways to restrain their proliferation and negative effects.
Different forms of legislation have been introduced - often with
unforeseen side effects in terms of spatial or programmatic
configuration, location and infrastructure.
The recent wave of inner-city shopping centres in Norway
can be linked with restrictions on development of our-of-town
locations, and seems to hold the promise to bolster city centre
retail to counter car-based suburban centres. There are, how-
ever, several problematic issues to be considered. New centres
will attract some of the successful local shops, leaving empty
spaces in the existing shopping districts. Shopping centres pre-
fer chain stores, with negative consequences for locally owned
stores, and an associated lower chance of local reinvestment of
profit. New centres tend to be introverted and turn their ‘back’
on the existing town and they also try to ‘privatize’ what was
perceived as public spaces.
Looking at Norwegian towns and cities, it is obvious that
shopping centres influence the development of public urban
space, and the perception, liveliness and attractiveness of city
centres. Many places struggle to maintain retail activities in all
parts of the designated town centre area—an issue illustrated
