Traditional Retail is Hanging by a Thread. What Now for Cities?

Kaid Benfield provides a literature review of essential 2025 studies of U.S. retail in the post-pandemic age of Amazon and e-commerce, and provides some key recommendations:

1. “Add housing density to commercial areas, putting more people – potential customers – within walking and easy driving distance of those establishments that remain viable…”
2. “…an enlivened generation of ‘third places’ such as libraries, gyms, and small parks.”
3. “… city nature integrated into urban fabric brings multiple benefits to neighborhoods and almost always makes them more attractive to pedestrians.”

“I don’t think we will ever get back fully to the retail environment of previous decades, except perhaps in a few special places.” Benfield writes. “The big counterforces – online shopping and a bigger degree of remote work practices – are here to stay. We’re in a different environment now, and new environments demand new ideas.”