Shopping as an urban leisure activity

Laura Lutzoni

pp. 187-204

in: Giovanni Maciocco, Silvia Serreli (eds), Enhancing the city, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

Leisure activities cannot be evaluated without taking into consideration the strong tie established between them and the spatial forms of shopping. Places of consumption have changed from areas that tended just to sell all manner of goods, to authentic areas of entertainment, their main characteristic being to simulate the urban centre, reproducing both its spaces and its functions. Whereas in the past leisure activities were localised in particular urban areas and practised only at specific times of day, there is currently a complete mixture of leisure and consumer phenomena in a single place, where there is total merging and equivalence of space for shopping and for entertainment. To understand better the way the shopping activity has become an integral part of leisure practices, we need to analyse the change in the bond between trade and urban space organisation.