Our street-level economy is undergoing dramatic change. Retailers are reeling from the rise of e-commerce, rising rents, and increasing storefront vacancies, along with a cultural shift from material to experiential consumerism. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to economic upheaval as commercial corridors and the small businesses they house face sweeping closures, bankruptcy, and job losses. Streetlife brings together scholars who have been trying to make sense of the changing retail landscape at street level and what it means for urbanism's future. Streetlife pays special attention to the varied responses and policies that have emerged to address the competing realities of small business loss and neighbourhood needs. With case studies from the United States, as well as contributions covering Canada and Europe, this book demystifies the logic behind street-level urban retail and calls for better plans, designs, policies, and innovations to bolster sales. Streetlife shows that now, more than ever before, we need to understand what makes our storefronts tick, what awaits them, and what we can do as planners, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to maintain retail as integral to urban lifestyle.

Who shapes our cities? In an age of increasing urban pluralism, globalization and immigration, decreasing public budgets, and an ongoing crisis of authority among designers and planners, the urban environment is shaped by a number of non-traditional stakeholders. The book surveys the kaleidoscope of views on the agency of urbanism, providing an overview of the various scholarly debates and territories that pertain to bottom-up efforts such as everyday urbanism, DIY urbanism, guerilla urbanism, tactical urbanism, and lean urbanism. Uniquely, this books seeks connections between the various movements by curating a range of views on the past, present, and future of bottom-up urbanism. The contributors also connect the recent trend of bottom-up efforts in the West with urban informality in the Global South, drawing parallels and finding contrast between social and institutional structures across the globe. The book appeals to urbanists in the widest sense of the word: those who shape, study, and improve our urban spaces.

This book provides the tools to maintain and rebuild the interaction between architecture and public space. Despite the best intentions of designers and planners, interactive frontages have dwindled over the past century in Europe and North America. This book demonstrates why even our best intentions for interactive frontages are currently unable to turn a swelling tide of economic and technological evolution, land consolidation, introversion, stratification, and contagious decline. It uses these lessons to offer concrete locational, programming, design, and management strategies to maximize street-level interaction and trust between street-level architecture, its inhabitants, and the city. This book demonstrates that designers, developers, planners, and managers ultimately have to create the right preconditions for inhabitants and passersby to bring frontages to life. These preconditions connect architecture to its urban, social, economical, and technological context. Only the right frontage in the right context, with the right design, the right inhabitation, and the right attitude to the city will become part of the ecosystem of trust and interaction that supports public life. This book empowers the many participants in this ecosystem to build, inhabit, and enjoy truly urbane architecture.

Our street-level economy is undergoing dramatic change. Retailers are reeling from the rise of e-commerce, rising rents, and increasing storefront vacancies, along with a cultural shift from material to experiential consumerism. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to economic upheaval as commercial corridors and the small businesses they house face sweeping closures, bankruptcy, and job losses. Streetlife brings together scholars who have been trying to make sense of the changing retail landscape at street level and what it means for urbanism's future. Streetlife pays special attention to the varied responses and policies that have emerged to address the competing realities of small business loss and neighbourhood needs. With case studies from the United States, as well as contributions covering Canada and Europe, this book demystifies the logic behind street-level urban retail and calls for better plans, designs, policies, and innovations to bolster sales. Streetlife shows that now, more than ever before, we need to understand what makes our storefronts tick, what awaits them, and what we can do as planners, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to maintain retail as integral to urban lifestyle.

This book provides the tools to maintain and rebuild the interaction between architecture and public space. Despite the best intentions of designers and planners, interactive frontages have dwindled over the past century in Europe and North America. This book demonstrates why even our best intentions for interactive frontages are currently unable to turn a swelling tide of economic and technological evolution, land consolidation, introversion, stratification, and contagious decline. It uses these lessons to offer concrete locational, programming, design, and management strategies to maximize street-level interaction and trust between street-level architecture, its inhabitants, and the city. This book demonstrates that designers, developers, planners, and managers ultimately have to create the right preconditions for inhabitants and passersby to bring frontages to life. These preconditions connect architecture to its urban, social, economical, and technological context. Only the right frontage in the right context, with the right design, the right inhabitation, and the right attitude to the city will become part of the ecosystem of trust and interaction that supports public life. This book empowers the many participants in this ecosystem to build, inhabit, and enjoy truly urbane architecture.