The Decline in Local Retail in the City Centres of Medium-Sized Towns

Medium-sized towns are an essential support for local retail in France. Town centre retail is mainly focused on personal goods (clothing, shoes, pharmacies, etc.), restaurants, bars and pubs, food shops, bank branches and real estate agencies. The composition of town-centre retail depends on its size: the largest ones are more focused on food services, bars and pubs and personal goods.

In eight out of ten medium-sized towns, the number of employees working in local retail in town centres fell between 2009 and 2015. However, local retail in cities as a whole has seen better trends than their city centres specifically. Despite regional disparities, these findings apply to metropolitan France as a whole.

City centre retail tends to be more resilient in attractive, in terms of demographics, employment or tourism, medium-sized towns.