Can Retail Drive Recovery in Small and Suburban Municipalities?
Lots of thought-provoking stuff awaits in the second installment of “THE DOWNTOWN CURMUDGEON VS THE RETAIL CONTRARIAN” in the American Downtown Revitalization Review (ADRR), where colleague N. David Milder and I debate the question of “WILL RETAIL DRIVE THE RECOVERIES IN OUR SMALL AND SUBURBAN MUNICIPALITIES?”, as a follow-up to our December 2022 back-and-forth on Large Downtowns. Specifically, we discuss how the pandemic and related trends have impacted the customer bases of and tenant prospects on the main streets in these communities, how these districts should be “positioned” in the marketplace going forward, which brands and retail categories are more or less likely to locate and thrive there, how independently-owned businesses have been adapting, what to think about the proliferation of dollar stores, what role the public / non-profit sector needs to play in all of this, etc.