Britain's Regional Shopping Centres: New Urban Forms?

Abstract

There have been a number of recent attempts to represent Britain's regional shopping centres as potentially being the cores of new towns. Using the example of the Merry Hill Centre in the West Midlands, this paper debates that issue. The paper suggests that new town centres such as the one in formation at Merry Hill pose a number of challenges to UK planning policy. Such centres might fruitfully be regarded as developing`edge cities' and are likely to have a considerable impact on Britain' s urban futures into the 21st century and beyond. This paper serves as a plea that, whatever our prejudices, it is surely now time to take these new urban forms seriously.

Transforming old industrial regions: Constructing collaboration within the Black Country, England

“…Historical place-based rivalries intensified as inter-local authority competition for regeneration and transportation funding strengthened. Tensions were at their highest in relation to the large scale 'out-of-town-centre' Merry Hill retail complex (see Lowe, 2000). Merry Hill simultaneously presented a challenge to the existing sub-regional settlement hierarchy, encouraged cross-boundary shopping, drew attention to town centre decline, helped to justify such decline and catalysed ambitions for retail investment across the Black Country (plus in Birmingham) (e.g.…”

Intra-Urban Analysis of Commercial Locations A GIS-Based Approach

“…The commercial system is also a large generator of traffic flow, and during the late 1960s and early 1970s commercial areas became catalysts for housing growth that continues to this day (Simmons 1991;Lowe 2000). Davies and Baxter (1997) add that with the continued growth of low-density suburbs, the residents of these areas almost exclusively rely on the automobile as the primary mode of transportation.…”

“…Gateway -The final classification is the gateway, also known as the edge city (Garreau 1992) and defined by Lowe (2000) as having the potential to be the centre for new town development. These developments represent growth on the urbanrural fringe and in many instances signify where suburban development is going to continue.…”

“…A final note is that the gateway designation is generally applied to rapidly growing urban areas where outwards expansion is continuing at a rate greater than infilling. This classification builds upon Lowe's (2000) suggestion that new mall development can become the catalyst for new city development by recognizing the importance of developments on the urban fringe and their potential for external growth around them. This category was added after examining the commercial systems of the three study areas and recognizing the presence of urban fringe developments.…”

“…Our suburbs, airports, sporting complexes, arts centers, and almost any other possible area have become potential commercial destinations. So great has been the growth of retailing in these new forms that Lowe (2000) has suggested that the idea of the mall as a catalyst for housing development has been advanced to a stage where the introduction of a regional mall has become the catalyst for new city development.…”