| The retail landscape in the Twin Cities metropolitan area evolved throughout the twentieth century. Retail environments were constructed, demolished, rebuilt, and dispersed as the property industry responded to changing demand caused by population growth, increased mobility and rising disposable income. Studies of the built landscape usually deal with buildings as the physical framework in which, and around which, all urban and social processes take place. But producing buildings for retail, or any other use, is itself an integral element of those processes. The construction of retail structures, however, is often treated as implicit in accounts of urban development and geography. The supply of places for shopping depends largely on the decisions and actions of the major actors involved against a background of the existing retail landscape's economic and political contexts.; This dissertation examines the broad trends in the evolution, distribution and mix of retail stores in the Twin Cities metropolitan area in 1960 and in 1998. Two in-depth case studies, the Southdale Shopping Center and the Mall of America are used to investigate the decisions and actions of actors instrumental in their development, probing the major decisions and issues that influenced these groundbreaking shopping centers. The research question becomes, in part, what conditions existed, and what options were available to the major actors when Southdale was proposed and built in the mid-1950s, and when the Mall of America was proposed and built in the late 1980s and early 1990s?; Few studies document the role of those involved in the production of the retail landscape. The present study uses Southdale and the Mall of America as case studies to broaden the understanding of how individuals and groups of individuals select from, and ‘negotiate’ with, existing conditions in the process of producing the urban landscape. My research argues that the built retail environment is actively involved in its own reproduction. These case studies are framed against the distribution and nature of retailing in the Twin Cities metropolitan region at the middle- and end-points of the last century. Increased attention to the “intangible” in the production of the retail landscape is necessary in future studies. Determination of the historical evolution, distribution of shopping centers, and mix of retailing at different points in time is useful in examining major players in the retail property industry responding to demand. |
