The main issue we are facing today as the shopping precinct is getting larger is in fact the definition of retail itself.
When malls where small it was easy to fill them up with some sharp answer to the local demand and be merry. Should one shop fail another one would take its place and so on.Those centers were edifices of style or grandeur and could sustain a presence only based on looksToday we are faced with a very different challenge: the size of the mall makes it a totally different animal. Beyond the use itself it becomes one of the magnets of any city and rivals any neighborhood strictly by the number of people visiting it.This in itself creates new opportunities and new duties. It becomes what it used to be at the time of the great Bazaars. The centers of the city as such should entertain a new collection of uses that were unthinkable before.Also it must become more of an integrated element in the urban texture than those fortresses that we are building today.The uses traditionally were split between convenience buying and impulse buying. The first one has still a long future ahead and shall be improved significantly with new merchandising techniques. The latter in essence is going to be broadened. Or diversified beyond the entertainment retail, that fashion is we will see a complete new series of outlets that will come to these centers lured by the vast quantities of people coming there. That is and it started already, Gyms, Spas, and Dance. Schools, do it yourself centers, schools of any kind as language or computer training or any improvement format. Even some medical centers, travel centers or any kind it will indeed come back to the origins of the Souks, a part of the City where all kinds of complementary activities take place. In essence people bring people and when there are people there is a base for businesses of all kinds.
So we are now in the realm of Urban Design, the revolution is complete.