retail - FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab

Ground floor

Lucio Beltrami — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 12:54:00 +0000

Our built heritage has gone through and goes through processes of decommissioning, abandonment and functional obsolescence generated over time by economic, social and demographic transition dynamics. This condition is also found with different intensity and characteristics in many other European and non-European urban contexts where different approaches to processes of functional transition and adaptive reuse (permanent or temporary) of large and small built heritage have been consolidated over time.

Whether in the case of entire parts of cities, buildings or complexes of buildings, individual units that are being emptied, or portions of open spaces and urban voids, there emerges, often earlier in urban practices than in urban planning and policies, the capacity (of public and private, profit and non-profit actors) to imagine disused/available urban heritage as an asset for the definition (and redefinition) of the strategic development horizons of urban systems.

The objective of this research work is to investigate the potential offered by combined urban regulations for incentives to use the private units available on the ground floors of the city of Turin as support for welfare policies. The research is carried out in collaboration with Urban Lab and the City of Turin.

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The distribution of retailers in Turin.

Lucio Beltrami — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 12:12:48 +0000

Abstract

Retail businesses compete in an oligopolistic market providing specific goods or services to consumers at observable market prices. Retailers decide how similar their product may be with respect to competitors and decide their best location. Location in the retail sector is meant to be more than just a geographic position. It is the relative position that a retailer can occupy given the proximity to other stores, and to potential consumers. It is an evaluation of social, economic, and even morphological aspects of urban life, such as centrality and accessibility, layout and design, visibility and popularity, cluster attraction, and spill-over. Hence, commercial city patterns are the result of a long process in which retailers deal with urban morphology, given that space is a scarce resource to be allocated with competitors.

The main objective of the research is to investigate the position of retailers in the municipality of Turin and the drivers that influence this fundamental decision process. The work is focused on the real estate and urban flow of people to indagate how these factors impact the commercial city pattern.

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Urban Retail

Lucio Beltrami — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:56:16 +0000

Retailers choose location on the basis of accessibility measures and attractiveness of potential places. Firstly, this research focuses on understanding and measuring the morphological characteristics of typical urban locations in order to provide a critical interpretation of urban commercial patterns. Moreover, more than ever before, traditional urban retail systems are endangered. Online shopping, upsurges in competition, recession and market saturation are, among the causes of a slow but steady transformative process, leading to the closure of physical stores throughout the city. If the presence of empty spaces within the urban tissue is an issue by itself, the closure of retailers is even worse. Indeed, they play a vital role in the liveability of a city by contributing to the vitality and the attractiveness of the neighborhood. Furthermore, the closure of retailers negatively interferes with the economic sustainability of the city and, thus, with its viability. As an even bigger problem, ripple effects might emerge as a consequence. Indeed, the agglomeration of empty spaces in a suburb tend to move consumers, that are more likely to purchase in attractive places, elsewhere. This consumers’ reaction might speed up the closure of retailers that are still active in that neighborhood which has become more and more unpleasant. Hence, secondly, this research aims at understanding the dynamics that lead to the closure of commercial spaces within the urban realm. Among the others, on-line retailing and the above-mentioned ripple effect matter.

Publications

Using Betweenness metrics to investigate the geographical distribution of retailers in Turin; L. Buzzacchi, P. Leveque, R. Taramino, G. Zotteri; presented at Oxford Retail Futures Conference, Dec 10-12, 2018 – submitted to Environment and Planning B
Stores closures generate a ripple effect: an investigation of exit dynamics in the retailing market; L. Buzzacchi, A. De Marco, R. Taramino, G. Zotteri; to be presented at 30th European Conference on Operational Research (EURO 30th), June 23-26, 2019
Competitive dynamics between online and offline retailing; L. Buzzacchi, R. Taramino, G. Zotteri

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Retail, Agglomeration and Urban Morphology

Lucio Beltrami — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 14:26:22 +0000

Abstract

Retail firms provide consumers with goods and services for consumption. They are an economic institution delivering explicit product or services at an observable market price, playing in an oligopolistic market.

Location choice is one of the most important decisions in retail. However, location is not meant to be only a spot on a map. The city can’t be viewed as if it were located on a featureless plan, on which all land is of equal quality. It is the relative position that a retailer can occupy given the proximity to other stores, on one hand, and to potential consumers, on the other hand. It is a juxtaposition of social, economic and even morphological aspects of urban life, such as centrality and accessibility, layout and design, visibility and popularity, cluster attraction and spill-over. Hence, commercial city patterns are the result of a long process in which retailers deal with urban network, given that space is a scarce resource to be allocated with competitors. One possible outcome of a such important choice, that has never been a consequence of chance, is that activities agglomerate in areas that are considered as accessible and attractive by the consumers.

Our research has the objective to investigate the existent relationship between retail location, urban morphology and socio-economic performance in order to provide a critical interpretation of the commercial city patterns.

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