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The goal of the article is to describe the transformation of retail and to reveal how representatives of retail turn to the idea of authenticity. The study focuses on 3 areas in the city of Novosibirsk: the city center, Akademgorodok, and Zatulinskiy residential area. This research is conducted by a mixed-method involving quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative approach is an analysis of interactive map data (2GIS): the information about all businesses in Novosibirsk’s districts in 2007 and 2023 years. The qualitative approach is visual analysis of the commercial fabric of the districts using the authenticity concept. The main findings of the research. During the period from 2007 to 2023, there was a significant increase in the number of retails in the selected areas. Moreover, in the case of the city center and Akademgorodok, the proportion of the HORECA category, primarily catering establishments, has increased. The retail in Zatulinskiy residential area is mainly represented by chain establishments, among which various grocery stores and supermarkets stand out, and the HORECA sphere is not expressed vividly. At the design level, establishments can refer to the authenticity of the place in various ways: by indicating official, expert evaluation of the age of the building, through names that refer to the roots of the place, or through images that would be associated with cultural symbols of the place. However, it is also typical for situations when symbols of places located in other countries are commodified, or when the only concern in the design is the visibility of the establishment. The results of this study may be of interest to business representatives who apply local symbols in their design.

At the present time, contradictory processes are taking place in cities: on the one hand, the commodification of the unique features of the city, on the other, the erasure of differences and the loss of the city's "soul"; painstaking work on branding territories, and at the same time, their depressing similarities. The question remains relevant: what analytical concepts can be used to describe and explain the transformations taking place in cities? This article proposes the concept of authenticity as a research tool. This concept is becoming more and more popular in the social sciences, but it is mainly used in theoretical works and is practically not used in applied research. This is due to the lack of a unified approach to the sociological definition of authenticity, and, as a consequence, to the absence of stable indicators for measuring it in empirical research. This article provides an overview of approaches to the definition of authenticity, a method for their classification is proposed (authenticity as an objective characteristic, as a social construct and as a feeling). Authenticity as an objective characteristic is based on confirmed authorship or attribution to time, place, technology. Authenticity as a constructed category is based on the perception of images of a place, its symbols and statuses. Authenticity as a human feeling arises in the process of individual and collective activity in space and is characterized as a feeling of "rootedness", "reality" and the usefulness of experience. It is possible to catch these three manifestations and describe authenticity in its multidimensionality by applying the concept of social space by H. Lefebvre, the "spatial triad", which consists of representations of space, space of representations and spatial practices.