Shops with a history and public policy

ABSTRACT

A program to support historical shops was recently created in Lisbon; called ‘Lojas com História’, it was later extended to other cities in the country. This paper shows the changes in public policy towards retail in Portugal where one finds an evolution from purely government regulation to a policing context aiming to strengthen competition between businesses, which endowed the sector with a growing role both in city policy and planning, and competition between cities. The evolution of policies reflects an increased focus on place with a shift from the support to commercial units, to strengthen their competitiveness, to their valorisation in the context of competition between cities. On the other hand, it is argued that this evolution is linked to the reinforcement of entrepreneurship in urban management. After recalling the social and spatial functions of retail and the changes in policies towards retail, we present the program and some characteristics of the shops covered by this program in Lisbon, followed by a first review and considerations on the challenges it brings.

KEYWORDS:

• Historical shops
• retail policy
• competition
• heritage
• Lisbon

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. [Project PHOENIX-Retail-Led Urban Regeneration and the New Forms of Governance (PTDC/GES -URB/31878/2017)].

Notes on contributors

Teresa Barata-Salgueiro

Teresa Barata-Salgueiro Professor Emeritus of the University of Lisbon, at IGOT (Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning) and senior researcher at the Centre for Geographical Studies (CEGL).

As full professor, she taught at the University of Lisbon and other Portuguese and foreign universities mainly in Europe and Brazil and has integrated MSc and PhD dissertation juries in Portugal, France, Belgium and Spain.

Her research interests include city change and urban redevelopment; retail structure, modernization, and resilience; housing and social exclusion; urban policy.

She has been a member or leader of research projects funded by Portuguese and European institutions on these topics of research with the collaboration of Portuguese and foreign universities, and some applied projects for public authorities.

She has published more than 150 titles on her main research subjects.