This seminar will be organized into four axes:

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1. The retail, consumption and leisure landscapes in transition: from the High Street to the virtual environments of shopping and entertainment. This axis welcomes research focused on the analysis of changes in the urban commercial systems in its different dimensions: traditional and modern sales techniques, e-commerce, retail formats, store location patterns, symbolic meaning of shopping and consumption, small shopkeepers vs supply chains, local commercial landscapes vs international or global business landscapes, evolution of the functional composition and the spatial organization of the commercial structures, among others.

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2. The new entrepreneurial logic of retail and services and the challenges they pose to scientific research and urban policies. This axis brings together the work, theoretical and / or empirical, concerned with the interpretation of the strategies of the companies responsible for the evolution and changes of urban retail systems. In this axis it is intended, on the one hand, to see how scientific research has sought to interpret the new entrepreneurial logic, using new perspectives of analysis and a renovation of conceptual and methodological tools, and on the other hand, to discuss how public policies have responded to market challenges, reformulating policies and programs, in order to restore the balance of commercial systems, by improving their resilience levels and fostering urban sustainability.

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3. Retail- and consumption-led urban regeneration and the new forms of city governance: projects, actors and processes. Urban regeneration programs led by retail and consumption are now a common response of the local authorities to deal with deindustrialization problems and decentralization of retail and services. These programs range from commercial environments anchored in flagships to the common management of town centres (TCM) or the business improvement districts (BID). This axis welcomes theoretical or empirical works focused on the critical analysis of these forms of urban regeneration related with changes in urban governance. We particularly welcome investigations that analyse retail-led urban regeneration experiences, successful or unsuccessful, whether or not involving partnerships between the public and private sector, the identification of the different stakeholders involved in the processes, the assessment of its results, or the presentation of evaluation methodologies.

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4. Consumption, key element for cities competitiveness, the organization of everyday life and the creation of lifestyles and identities. Positioning itself at the intersection of different spheres of life, consumption plays nowadays multiple roles ranging through politics, economy, society and culture, with a clear expression in the morphology of cities. This axis welcomes theoretical or empirical work oriented to: (i) critical reflection on how the consumption has been conceptualized in the social sciences; (ii) the overview of the relation of consumption with the development of the city, the construction of identities, lifestyles and forms of sociability; (iii) the discussion on how cities have become simultaneously spaces for consumption and to be consumed, and are now appropriated through the experiences offered to individuals-consumers; (iv) the analysis of the use of consumption by cities, with different positions in the urban network, to regenerate their economic base and increase their ability to attract investment, tourists and new residents.