Congratulations, Rosa Danenberg!
Congratulations to Rosa Danenberg, who defended her thesis "Main Streets as Resilient Public Spaces. Zooming in on ground floors in Stockholm" on 8 December at the Department of Urban Planning and Environment.
Main streets are vital components of urban cities worldwide and serve as pivotal nodes for socializing, commerce, and mobility. Since the turn of the twentieth century, they have played a significant role in Western cities. But their role has diminished due to modernist planning, Rosa's study shows.
What was your most exciting finding?
"One out of two storefronts on the four main streets in Stockholm that I have studied have changed, which indicates that storefronts on main streets are a dynamic ecosystem that brings life to the city. At the same time, my findings point towards retail gentrification and chain stores, which means a loss of everyday small businesses serving residents and local character."
Her thesis examines what role ground floors play in creating adaptable and resilient main streets, examining how planning, design, and management can support this process. She used Google Street View to examine changes in the functioning of the ground floors in Stockholm between 2009 and 2018. As it turns out, a lot changed in a decade.
Small, local and independent businesses accounted for two-thirds of the ground floors in 2009, but just ten years later, they accounted for nearly half of the ground floors. Chain stores emerged to replace the independent shops that disappeared. The thesis shows that retail planning and public-space management approaches to main streets and ground floors shed light on the need for curation.
"Can Stockholm learn from other cities?"
Stockholm can learn from other cities how to develop the capacity to curate the main street and storefronts. Stockholm does not have a main street or storefront policy, and the collaboration around places is in its early stages. Given the retail transformation affecting main street's storefronts, more planning, design and management is needed to support small businesses to preserve the main street's character and connection to the neighborhood.
Download Rosa's thesis Main Streets as Resilient Public Spaces. Zooming in on ground floors in Stockholm to read her findings.