American downtowns have utilized a wide assortment of redevelopment strategies over the past four decades in an attempt to revive the rapidly decentralizing retail sector. To compete with suburban retailing - most notably the enclosed suburban shopping mall - downtowns have employed four major redevelopment strategies: pedestrian malls, festival marketplaces, indoor shopping centres, and mixed-use centres. In addition, other strategies ranging from the main street approach to centralized retail management have been implemented in downtowns. This article will review the characteristics, application, strengths, and problems of each of these strategies, using the rival suburban shopping mall as a comparative model throughout the article.
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Kent A. Robertson (1997) studied this question.