The city always wins!

Paul Rodenburg of B@S (Brood@Spelen) Retail Consultants is a specialist in retail, shopping malls and inner-city development. ‘The B and S in our name stand for “brood en spelen”, that’s Dutch for the expression “bread and circuses”. It is a reference to the emperors of the late Roman Empire who won the public’s favour by showering them with entertainment, food and drinks. That 2000-year-old approach has today grown into a complete economy, the “experience economy”, in which shopping, dining and entertainment, and arts and culture come together.’

The city always wins!

Paul Rodenburg of B@S (Brood@Spelen) Retail Consultants is a specialist in retail, shopping malls and inner-city development. ‘The B and S in our name stand for “brood en spelen”, that’s Dutch for the expression “bread and circuses”. It is a reference to the emperors of the late Roman Empire who won the public’s favour by showering them with entertainment, food and drinks. That 2000-year-old approach has today grown into a complete economy, the “experience economy”, in which shopping, dining and entertainment, and arts and culture come together.’

The city has both: the experience you create, and the customer’s experience of added value ‘Cities are dynamic, and over the centuries have continued to reinvent themselves to adapt to their time,’ says Rodenburg. ‘Simple market squares, with booths and hawkers surrounded by inns, developed into the city centres where the urban dwellers, visitors and entrepreneurs of today love to be. And even in the modern online economy, the inner city remains something indispensable. The city is, parallel to and in concert with the online world, a vital physical platform where you can find something for everyone: shops, restaurants, entertainment; home, work, public space and the built environment. The city is an experience writ large: a place where memorable moments happen, where people come together, where experience becomes meaningful.’

Helping each other transform

‘The authenticity of the city environment helps the parties in it to create new experiences. Against this backdrop, property owners provide the stage that retailers need, the place where they can act. Retailers, in turn, then play to the needs of their customers, and by doing that help the consumer to define themselves and become who they are,’ says Rodenburg. ‘It is in the city that all these ambitions and transformations come together. Municipalities, property owners and retailers who understand this will win in the fight for the consumer’s favour, with their unique locations, unique buildings and unique product ranges. Creativity is critical here. I see myself as a driver of this transformation. By connecting property, retail and the consumer in the inner city, both locally and online, to the experience economy, we create physical added value in the inner city, in the form of attraction and transaction.’

“By combining shops with dining, leisure and other functions, retail is moving more and more towards becoming a recreational activity.”

Paul Rodenburg
Director of B@S Retail Consultants and specialist in urban retail transformations

Meaningful sustainability

‘The inner city as a physical platform still plays an important role in what we today sometimes refer to as the “platform economy”,’ says Rodenburg, ‘and it will continue to do so into the coming decades. I see an important, logical connection between the city and the online world. For property and retail, this means having both a location and a nationwide, even international, reach. Alongside all the well-known national and international chains, we are also seeing a local and sustainable circular economy emerging in cities. What began as a second-hand online channel, on sites like eBay, is now becoming physically present. Small retailers, and more recently more and more big ones as well, are now focusing hard on local and sustainable circular supply chains. For the time being, this trend still mostly concerns clothing and furniture, but in the coming years, we will see it appearing in other segments, too. At the same time, we are also seeing space for old-fashioned craftsmanship returning; tailors, woodworkers and certainly establishments like breweries are on the increase right now. All around these you see new experience concepts emerging: new shops, vegan dining and so on. City centres are becoming more sustainable and circular, offering an experience with real meaning and driving a new local urban economy,’ says Rodenburg. ‘Even with the world at our fingertips online, we are in some sense also going back to the Roman era: the centre of town as a nexus of retail and entertainment. It is a real “back to the future” moment!’

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