Town and transport planning and the development of retail trade in metropolitan areas of West Germany

Town and transport planning have a strong influence on retail trade and, on the other hand, often are influenced themselves by the needs of retail trade. It seems that differences in planning legislation, political and entrepreneurial goals have resulted, in Germany, in a process different from many other nations, especially from the USA. The American model had been followed until the middle of the seventies with strong suburbanization, car oriented transportation planning and the fast diffusion of free standing shopping centres and hypermarkets. Since then new shopping centres and hypermarkets are smaller and in most cases integrated into existing urban centres, traffic planning in Metropolitan areas gives priority to public transport and downtown is converted step by step into a large pedestrian precinct (often 4–6 km network of pedestrian streets). Car use by visitors of department stores since 1965 has had only a very modest increase in downtowns of cities with more than 500 000 residents owing to enormous investments into public transport (in small cities, in contrast, car use increased dramatically). Comparisons of the means of transport, used by downtown customers in cities with more than 500 000 residents, show great differences which, in many ways, are caused by different town and transport planning. Pedestrianization, changes in lifestyles towards a cost-industrial society, investments of retailers at downtown sites and the improved accessibility by subway and suburban railway systems (in some cases also by improved streetcars) have helped German downtowns to remain vital. This can be seen from increasing numbers of pedestrians downtown. Munich and Nuremberg are described as examples of this success.