Flights Of Fancy About Retail in the ’15-Minute City’

Published On: April 1, 2021By Categories: Short Read

In reading the articles and listening to the hype about the “15-minute city”, it strikes me that no one ever says a thing about whether the walkable retail that is so foundational to the concept would ever actually materialize or survive. Take an urban grocery: there’s a threshold population density needed to sustain such a store that only exists in a tiny subset of sub-markets across the country, and while a growing number of operators are rolling out smaller formats customized to such settings, most of them still have a ways to go before they’ve even saturated those same Class A sub-markets. Yes, online delivery might fill some of the gaps, but that still necessitates delivery fees, which lower-income consumers are often less willing to stomach. It might be an alluring vision, but let’s not oversell the idea, or we’ll create a set of expectations that will in many cases disappoint.

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