British high streets: from crisis to recovery? A comprehensive review of the evidence

In one of the most exhaustive evidence reviews into high streets, town centres and consumer habits ever conducted in Britain, researchers at the University of Southampton have highlighted that seismic shifts in consumer behaviour, combined with significant technological innovations, are having a deep and profound impact on the evolution of UK high streets.Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and commissioned by the Government’s advisory group The Future High Streets Forum, this report comes at a time when radical shifts in consumer culture and practices are becoming increasingly apparent and widely discussed in public debate on what is changing UK town centres and high streets.This review offers an important resource for many groups with stakes in British town centres and high streets. It reflects the fact that reversing the decline of Britain’s high streets can only be achieved through research and informed discussion and by harnessing the goodwill and common purpose which has recently been displayed by the many stakeholders in the retail, hospitality, property and leisure sectors in working together to understand and address those challenges

High street performance and evolution: a brief guide to the evidence

This guide is a summary of the evidence on recent high street and town centre performance. It is designed to help those developing local policies and strategies for these areas.British town centres and high streets have undergone dramatic change over the last decade. Few would dispute the combined impact of long-term shifts in policy, demographics and transport with the medium and shorter-term impacts of online retail and the shockwave of economic crisis on our high streets. But for those charged with understanding these changes more fully and coming up with effective responses, hard evidence is not always easy to come by.Recognising this need, the Future High Streets Forum co-commissioned with the Economic and Social Research Council(ESRC) a study of the available evidence base, led by Southampton University and funded by the ESRC. Working with experts across the field, the Southampton study reviews what robust evidence is available on the trends impacting high streets and town centres, and provides a guide to how those trends have changed, and will continue to change, those vital commercial and social spaces. This will be invaluable for those developing local policies and strategies to sustain the economic health and vitality of town centres and high streets. The study also identifies the most significant gaps in evidence

Urban change and neighbourhood dynamics : the case of Barcelona

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Variegated capitalism, the Greek crisis and SYRIZA’s counter-neoliberalisation challenge

The objective of this critical review is twofold. Firstly, we intend to tackle a number of assumptions that view the Greek crisis as the result of a marked resistance to (neoliberal) structural reforms and the failure to engage constructively with the challenges of globalisation. Instead, we argue that Greece was set on a neoliberal trajectory much before the crisis erupted, and that it is precisely this sustained neoliberalisation process – rather than its absence – that lays behind much of Greece’s current troubles. Secondly, we attempt an assessment of the prospect that SYRIZA’s victory may be signalling the start of a counter-neoliberal mobilisation. Drawing on the work of Brenner and others, we identify four alternative scenarios – capitulation, divorce, compromise, transformation – and discuss their implications for Greece and the Eurozon