Introduction

Despite significant attention to the outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has largely just accentuated some of what might be described as pre-existing systemic challenges for the city centre under neoliberal systems of government and capitalist economic systems. First, the diverse and disaggregated ownership of property across the city centre, reflecting the role of private sector enterprise and the dilution of public sector roles, is meaning that management of the city centre is struggling to identify resilient solutions. Indeed, it is often leading to more fractured decision-making and leadership. Second, there is emphasis on renting and leasing of commercial and residential property as a source of investment growth. This trend strengthened after the prime-leading financial crisis of 2009, and is seen to be susceptible in moments of extreme pressure. Third, the focus on retail as the panacea, or perhaps even the raison d’etre for the city centre, has become fragile as the digital revolution encourages more people to turn to online retail and purchasing. The notion of pressure on the city centre is, however, far from new. The reality for most centres over the past few decades has been one in which moments of success have been limited, and intervention and management of problems and challenges became the norm. Where success has been noted, such examples are often mimicked elsewhere, transferring these practices as pathways to regeneration and recovery. In managing such encounters, city centres represent increasingly competitive arenas that demand ever more sensitive and appropriate forms of governance. Their distinctive multi-functionality, complex forms of ownership and presence in urban space, as well as the footprint of heritage, make the centres different in terms of management from cities as a whole.

In writing about the future of the city centre at this time, there is inevitably uncertainty about what will occur. The current situation is exacerbating and accentuating already existing trends in the transformation of the city centre, and throughout the book outcomes that are already visible can guide the future. The perspectives therefore respond to the circumstances that contemporary societies are facing across the world. The hypothesis is that the future of the city centre is both partially derived from experience and partially open to imagination. The former reflects the notion that the physical character as well as its social and economic future reflect legacy. The most obvious element of this perception is the physical form of the city centre – its buildings, its streets, its public spaces, and other fabric that maybe is only slowly replaced, or is carefully retained largely immune to change. The latter is less concrete and more abstract, but is equally defining, as the ability to imagine an alternative structure of buildings and spaces. This is arguably most evident when the city centre has been subjected to trauma, such as the flooding of New Orleans, of the earthquake of Christchurch, or the explosion of ammonium nitrate in the docks of Beirut in 2020. More extreme examples exist in conflict zones, where entire city centres are reduced to rubble and dereliction, and futures have literally to be constructed from the debris. The authors are aware of these extreme situations but this publication predominantly relates to the conditions faced by the majority of city centres.