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Future Spirit: Urban design of the future & the role of retail
4 Jul 2023
Inner cities are not becoming less frequented because of digitalisation, but the goals and the locations of the urban public are changing. What are these goals? What needs to change in city centres to revitalise brick-and-mortar retail? What are the best practices of successful transformations? What is the role of retail in the future? The futurologist and head of the ZTB Zukunftsbüro in Vienna Andreas Reiter provides answers to these questions.
The retail fan is convinced that retailers must become story dealers when it comes to differentiating themselves from convenient online shopping. Find out more in the video clip.
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Historically, the city centre is the stored DNA of a city. The original marketplace had the function of exchanging goods, ideas, vanities, encounters. This old transfer place has to be filled in a new way, because we are in the middle of a huge transformation. On the one hand, the digital transformation, on the other hand, it's about a climate-friendly conversion - with more green roofs, façade greening, etc., to create an antipole to heat islands.
"We can only develop locations sustainably together with an intelligent complicity of the most divergent actors in a neighbourhood [...] Try and error. We have to dare more experiments with an open outcome and occupy public space in a more playful way."
In all respects, a pleasant quality of stay must be created in city centres - this includes consumption-free zones with playgrounds so that people also consume after all.
Good examples on an international level are Copenhagen, Paris or Vienna and on a national level referring to Germany Münster, Erfurt or Freiburg - these cities are characterised by a good demographic structure - with many young people and a young spirit, where public space is treated with care. Furthermore, the motto for the urban design of the future is: cars have to get out, and instead we have to work on accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.
Insights
Retailers need to act together and in concert with other retailers.
Even better is an intelligent partnership of retailers, property owners, municipalities, city administration, politics and all industries that are located in a neighbourhood.
Build on the city's identity anchor, become a storydealer as a retailer and treat sustainability holistically from packaging to product selection to staging.
Expert information
Futurologist Andreas Reiter founded the ZTB Zukunftsbüro in Vienna at the end of 1996, which effectively accompanies companies, municipalities, destinations and the public sector through the Twin Transformation (smart & green). Andreas Reiter advises on strategic future issues and speaks as a key note speaker at international congresses and conferences. He also teaches trend management at the Danube University Krems and at the MCI in Innsbruck and is an active member of various expert commissions.
