Building for consumption: an institutional analysis of peripheral shopping center development in northwest Europe

In West Europe, one of the most contested kinds of urban development is the out-of-town shopping center. Pointing to the US experience, these are viewed as threats to the vitality of traditional town centers, and are often actively discouraged by planning legislation. This notwithstanding, ever-larger shopping malls were being built in Europe as the 1990s progressed. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this did not always conform to the classic North American style mall; local variation was apparent in many cases. The book Building for Consumption takes an institutional approach in its investigation of this issue, asking what factors were crucial in influencing the decision-making process to approve development, and under what specific conditions this took place. To this end, it examines one peripheral retail development project in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom showing how local actors utilized, manipulated or circumvented national policy and local opportunity structures, and how this resulted in different kinds of shopping center development.