Urban Centre Redevelopment

Urban decline ::

Decline of an urban centre is influenced by many factors. City councils are often determined to attract new industry and inward investment and may even offer greenfield sites for development. Planning policies can encourage urban expansion and provide development 'out of town'. Companies find peripheral locations cheaper and nearer more affluent customers and staff in the leafy suburbs. Investors and businesses are attracted by peripheral sites because they have good access and pleasant environments surrounding. 

Since the cost and upkeep of developments of CBDs (central business district) such as rents and land costs, it is much more attractive to develop out of town. Congestion in CBDs means that accessibility is reduced for customers and companies certainly do not want that. Progressive suburbanisation leads to urban sprawl and edge cities where the city centre may be many miles away. Many city centres are perceived as dirty, unsafe, aesthetically unpleasant and with a poor infrastructure.

Solutions ::

1. establish management and marketing teams to coordinate overall management of CBDs and run special events.

2. Pedestrianisation helps with safety issues and pollution levels in city centres therefore improving the shopping environment.

3. Constructing all-weather shopping malls in the centre that are air-conditioned and heated depending on the season. However space and rent may be an issue here.

4. Encourage specialist areas such as attractive open street markets, cultural quarters and arcades.

5. Improving public transport links to the heart of the CBD. This includes park and ride schemes, shopper buses and bus lanes. 

6. Install a CCTV system to help deter crime and improve safety levels.

7. Make the CBD safer for women by improving street lighting, registering taxi vehicles, having lots of public place seating, maintaining hedges at shoulder height and placing help points in the city with alarms and phones.

Offering other services ::

1. Encouraging a wider range of leisure facilities including cafes, bars, restaurants, music venues, cinemas and theaters to entice people.
2. Promoting street entertainment to attract people like in Covent Garden in London.
3. Developing the nightlife scene like in Leeds
4. Developing flagship attractions such as the Photographic Museum in Bradford.
5. Constructing office blocks, apartments, hotels and conference centres to attract business people.

Case Study: Birmingham

The city of Birmingham grew rapidly in size during the Indutrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th century. It's main industries were guns, jewellery, toys and metalworking. Factories were built int he city centre and along canals and railway lines for access. By 1960, housing had deteriorated and so many were replaces with blocks of flats. By 1970, the council had decided to reinvest into the city centre and redevelop it.

1960's Improvements:

The first stage of which was to improve road links. The increase in car ownership meant there was a need for structures such as ring roads to reduce congestion. In the most central ring road a shopping centre named the Bull Ring was built over several floors. A large bus station and covered market were also constructed.

1960's Issues:

Because of the vast amount of ring roads, pedestrian access became a problem quickly. Underpasses had to be built which left many women feeling unsafe and prime targets in the CBD. Shopping precincts became dingy and run down so people were attracted to out of town retail centre Merryhill in Dudley instead.

Recent redevelopment ::

The new Bull Ring was opened in 2003 over three floors and was home to 140 shops and 3000 car parking spaces. Saint Martin's Square was linked to the site and hosts music concerts and stages other events. 8000 jobs had been created and further development as planned. By the end of 2004 the complex had become so successful that it entered the top three shopping centres in the UK.

The Bird's Custard Factory in Digbeth built in 1900 was derelict by 1980. The council wanted to encourage creative industries and so in its first stage of development, 500 artists and small enterprises accommodated the factories small studios and workshops. Development continued and attracted cafes and antiques shops to the site along with the refurbishment of rooms into dance studios, art galleries and bars.

Out of town retailing

Factors pushing out-of-town shopping:

Population changes because of suburbanisation (outward movement of people to the suburbs) and counter-urbanisation (outward movement of people past the rural-urban fringe). Wealthy shoppers now live outside of the city centre and prefer not to drive into the city centre because of high traffic congestion levels and the price of parking.
High rents do not help the situation. Businesses would much prefer to rent cheaper land out of town and have more of it rather than in the town centre and be limited with space. Land out of town also offers car parking space which would also entice more customers and will often be free- a major plus!

Threats to out-of-town retailing:

Superstores are usually located on the outskirts of towns. They offer a large range of items for consumers to purchase ranging from vegetables to clothes to technology. Years ago there would have been separate shops for these items but now people prefer the convenience of the superstore which puts smaller business at risk.
Internet shopping also adds pressure onto city centres since most people have internet access and don't even have to walk out of their door to buy things nowadays. This service is on the increase, so in future will even the out-of-town centres have declined?
Leisure parks out of town that contain cinemas, laser quest arenas, bowling alleys, restaurants and free parking threaten city centres in addition.
Empty city centre shops lead to urban decline. The domino effect is that people move away who can afford to and low earning residents are left behind. Housing quality then deteriorates which further pushes people away from the centre as they look to move elsewhere.

The Trafford Centre, Manchester

Nature of the outlet ::

The Trafford Centre was opened in 1998. Land value had increased dramatically in Manchester city centre and land was cheaper to rent on the outskirts. A growth in car ownership meant that access to this area was available for many people. The area that the centre lies on was a brownfield site -previously built on land. The industrial park that the site operated as became disused and had declined so in 1995 permission was granted to redevelop the site. The site itself was built in less than three years and costed £880 million to build.

Transport ::

The centre has a catchment of 5.5 million people who live within a 45 minute drive of the centre the demographic of which are mostly suburban-semi owners and young single people. The centre boasts a 30 million visitor count per year. Its location allows good access to the M60, M6 and M62 which is ideal for access.

There is an even car parking distribution with half of the spaces available on the ground floor and half on the first floor. Automatic message boards inform people of how many spaces are left and walkways are known to be on a slight angle to psychologically motivate people into walking into the shopping centre and demotivate them from walking up and out of the outlet.

90% of visitors travel by car and park in one of the available 10,000 parking spaces or 300 coach spaces.The bus station has the capacity to see 120 buses through per hour adding to ease of access to the centre.

Design and layout :: 

There are 280 shops withing the Trafford Centre including known department stores such as Debenhams, Selfridges, John Lewis and M&S. There is a 20 screen Odeon cinema which is know to be the busiest cinema complex in the UK, a Laser Quest arena, and 18 lane bowling alley and 36 restaurants within the structure. In addition, Trafford is home to Europe's largest food court seating 1600 people.

This array of shops employs over 7,000 people and so benefits the local people greatly. The long opening hours of 10am-10pm allow people to shop whenever is convenient to them whether it be after work or during the day thus enhancing the attraction to the centre.

Issues arisen ::

As of 2010, 37% of shops in Altrincham (nearby area) are vacant.

Congestion on M60 at Barton Bridge.

Pictures sourced from ::

visitmanchester.com
airviews.info
interactiveartsenquiry.wordpress.com