Quote:
Originally Posted by McBane
I don't know about that. That time period you hark back to was absent of Internet shopping, the growth of the suburbs (at the city's expense), and the proliferation of shopping malls in those areas.
I'm not saying that Philadelphia couldn't use or sustain more retail. I just wouldn't use the retail footprint from the early 20th century as "proof" of anything. Times have changed greatly.
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For sure it will never be the same as 65 years ago.
The internet has an across the the board impact on all shopping - New York, Philly, King of Prussia, wherever - particularly with respect to generic corporate chain store products. This is probably particularly true wrt generic suburban mall shopping where the mall offers virtually nothing extra over just staying home and shopping on the laptop. Suburbs stand alot more to lose from internet shopping than the city.
But places like NYC, Boston, the Magnificent Mile, SF - and, increasingly, Philly - offer alot more and draw in day trippers from the extended region and beyond. Like in the old days, those people are looking to have a unique downtown experience in addition to just buying even generic stuff. In the old days, people routinely traveled to Center City on day trips not only to shop but to take in everything the city had to offer. Beats sitting at home on your ass glued to a computer screen (for alot of people, anyway).
10 - 35 years ago, the vast majority of people buying mid- to high-end things in Center City were Center City people, because everyone else was going to the burbs for parking and greater variety. So Philly declined to a pretty weak downtown shopping scene. Suburbanites so no value in coming downtown anymore. That's definitely been changing. Center City is far more competitive with the best suburban malls in terms of variety of chain offerings, plus it offers an increasing array of unique stores and diversions that the suburbs, almost by definition, have never been and will never be able to offer. I think we are partially catching up with the Bostons and Chicagos. May never match them retail-wise, but were closing in slowly.
I think this project may seriously shift the momentum in shrinking that gap more quickly.