Going dark: the post-pandemic transformation of the metropolitan retail landscape

by Alex Bitterman and Daniel Baldwin Hess

Since the start of the 2020 crisis, nearly one-third of American households have placed an online grocery order, representing a 200 per cent surge in online grocery shopping, of which more than 26 per cent were first-time online shoppers.

Conversion from bricks-and-mortar stores to dark stores will have an impact on the urban form and built environment, but the darkening of mom-and-pop boutiques will have a much greater effect on the long-term viability of shopping districts, central business districts and high streets (and the neighbourhoods they serve).

To read the full article in Town Planning Review click here.