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International organizations, public authorities and researchers have increasingly been concerned with urban resilience and sustainability. We focus on the triangle retail, urban resilience and city sustainability, aiming to uncover how cities have coped with retail challenges to increase their resilience towards a sustainable path, highlighting the role played by public policy. The case study asks, is Central Lisbon strongly affected by processes of regeneration, touristification and gentrification, simultaneously with changes in retail. The analysis of planning and other policy documents complemented by fieldwork evidence shows a close link between public initiatives and private entrepreneurship and their impacts in the vitality of the core. The text shows that the policy outlined by local authorities to overcome the decline of the city center and to meet the aims of sustainability implies urban resilience. The transformation of retail is aligned with that vision and is supported its achievement, while the commercial fabric suffered an evolution from shopping to consumption spaces, polarized by culture and entertainment, targeting new consumers and lifestyles. However, new social and economic challenges arise due to escalating housing prices, change in retail supply, the excessive dependence of tourism and the danger of losing part of the city’s identity.

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Retail is a dynamic sector and for several decades shopping centres have been the most successful format. Although such shopping centres have been held responsible for the decline of other retail concepts, they are not without problems and some retail precincts are losing their viability, becoming dead malls. Some other shopping centres however are quite resilient. In this study we analyse the different retail resilience strategies used by older shopping centres to overcome their declining trend. For empirical evidence we adopt a case study methodology and fieldwork to investigate the evolution of all old shopping centres in Lisbon, confirming that a general trend of decline is affecting a large majority of those retail precincts. Refining our analysis, we interviewed managers from three shopping centres that remain viable. We conclude that a wide range of strategies can be implemented, all of which enhance the relevance of the shopping centre management structures.

To overcome the decline of the vitality and viability of town centres across several Western European cities, urban regeneration projects have been implemented. Despite their dissemination, there are shortcomings regarding the evaluation of the impacts produced by such projects. We aim to contribute to the existing literature on the subject by undertaking an evaluation of a retail-led urban regeneration project that was implemented in Lisbon's historic centre. We conclude that although there were significant outputs, the project was not effective and did not manage to improve the viability of the area as an important commercial area of Lisbon.