Fewer shops, more catering: “As long as the street is alive” | Domestic

The shopping street is – and you will probably have already noticed – undergoing a metamorphosis. The time when a shoe store, a boutique and an electrical store were next to each other is long gone. The figures now prove this: 10,000 stores have disappeared in ten years. And striking: in seven Flemish central cities that gap is being filled by new catering establishments and the shopping street suddenly resembles a terrace. “In the past, you had a copy center for every three stores here. Now they are coffee bars.”