Ways of Living in the Market City - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 131

ther speculation, and to reach the quality standards that were boasted when they
acquired their homes and which induced them to live in these new settlements.
lastly, the lack of services and facilities in the district complete the picture of
an utterly failed policy of regenerating the suburbs, and it was very easy to predict
that this objective would not be met. we are dealing with completely inadequate
urban public policies, as well as an easily standardized concept of a city that has
lost the rich resources and the whole experience of living together in a commu-
nity; a concept of a city that is dominated by other interests and, in view of the
results of the entire process, seems to be guilty of having deceived people.
The effects on the organization of the City
it is important to analyze the effects on the city's organization that have resulted
from the creation of the shopping center and the districts linked to it. The first
effect has been a slump of commercial activities in the nearby neighborhoods.
many traders are tempted to move to the shopping center, but this is a high-cost
operation and not always successful. one can indeed find a place in the mall, but
with certain conditions attached. The contract—with respect to provision of ser-
vices, ability to attract a very large number of customers, marketing, and promo-
tion—stipulates that the shopkeeper pays an annual fee commensurate with his
or her expected turnover. at the end of the year, the fee to be paid is fixed, even if
the expected turnover has not been achieved. if the turnover has been achieved
or exceeded, it becomes the reference point for next year's fee. Thus, the fee to be
paid each year tends to increase and takes no account of possible slack periods.
This means that traders not infrequently give up. The company that runs the
shopping center regards a periodic “turnover” of shops as normal. obviously, it is
only the traders of some substance who sell well-known and recognizable brand
names who can succeed under this pressure. Therefore, it is not easy to transfer a
local store to the shopping center.
at the same time, however, the stores in the shopping center meet almost
all the demands of middle- and upper-middle-class shoppers. The traders in the
neighboring districts accordingly experience not so much a disappearance of lo-
cal shops (which to some extent does happen) as their reorientation toward the
lowest or very high segments of the market (from the viewpoint of costs and prod-
uct quality). There has been an unprecedented proliferation of Chinese shops;
bars selling slices of pizza, kebabs, and other types of fast food; or stores selling
commodities of little worth. This brings about a radical change in the shopping
streets, which lose their character of “a bustling thoroughfare” in the neighbor-
hood and a meeting place where the shopkeeper often plays a social role that goes
beyond the mere selling of products. what happens therefore is a major reduc-
tion in people visiting these streets, giving rise to a perception of uncertainty in
a downward spiral that leads to an overall impoverishment of life in the district.