The Life and Death of the Shopping City

Abstract

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day crisis of high street retailing and central area economies. Alistair Kefford shows how planners, property developers, councils and retailers worked together to create the modern shopping city, remaking the physical fabric, economy and experience of cities around this retail-driven developmental model. This book also offers a wider social history of mass affluence, showing how cities were transformed to meet the perceived demands of a society of shoppers, and why this effort was felt to be so urgent in an era of urban deindustrialisation. By bringing the story of the shopping city right up to its present-day crisis and collapse, Kefford makes clear how the historical trajectories traced in this book continue powerfully to shape urban Britain today.

Life funds, urban development, and the experimental practices of financial sociology

“…Such long‐term investments had to involve modelling not simply how people live now but how they would – and should – live. In Britain, shopping centre developments were part of the ‘retail‐led reinvention’ of urban space that was by the mid‐century an established strategy for local economic and social revitalisation (Kefford, 2022). The insurers who began to invest in urban property systematically cultivated their relationships with retailers, particularly multiple retailers, as part of this.…”

“…The Solihull redevelopment, completed in 1967, was the outcome of a ten‐year collaboration between Norwich Union and the local borough council. Solihull's ballooning postwar population led to the council approaching Norwich Union following the company's development of a shopping area in Wilmslow and delivering to them ‘a vast slice of prime town centre real estate’ on a 125‐year ground lease (Kefford, 2022, p. 127). The scheme that emerged (Figure 6) grew from the initial plan, to become Norwich Union's first attempt to fully reimagine a ‘modern’ postwar town.

On the 12½ acres cleared of congested streets and ageing cottages and shops, there has arisen a pleasant open square surrounding an island of trees and fountains.

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“…It recounts how Solihull's council, chief architect and chief engineer worked alongside Norwich Union's architects, surveyors and officials and continually emphasizes the company's vision for the town centre and its ‘character and appearance’ from shopfronts to exterior walls. This was a centre transformed, like the enclosed versions that would follow, by the design of ‘surreal, languorous new landscapes punctuated by entertaining novelties such as fountains’ (Kefford, 2022, p. 11). Issues like traffic, parking, loading, access, day and night‐time flows of people were addressed in the placement of offices, shops, housing, and amenities.…”