Looking at retail planning policy through a sustainability lens: Evidence from policy discourse in Finland

Land Use Policy 79 (2018) 190–198

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Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

Looking at retail planning policy through a sustainability lens: Evidence from policy discourse in Finland

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Laura Yrjänä, Anahita Rashidfarokhi , Saija Toivonen, Kauko Viitanen Department of Built Environment, School of Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Retail planning Retail planning policy Retail location Sustainability Policy discourse

This study aims to identify and categorise the sustainability concerns raised in retail planning policy discourse, using empirical data from Finland. In order to identify the concerns, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of the policy discourse presented in media from 1990 to 2015. The analysis was conducted chronologically in order to understand the evolution of the sustainability concerns and the changes in the policy debate. To categorise the concerns identified from the discourse, we developed a holistic sustainability framework based on previous literature. Our findings show that during 1990′s the concerns were mostly socio-economic, however, due to enforcement of sustainable development policies, the share of environmental concerns raised significantly in 2000s. The findings of our study reveal the problematics of the retail planning policy making and call for a more holistic understanding of the multidimensionality of the sustainability impacts of retail planning.

1. Introduction Retail planning policies have been in the midst of a major change all over Europe in the last decades, due to concern over the negative impacts of out-of-town centres, such as increased car dependency and the decline of small town centres (Bell et al., 1997; Cliquet, 2000; Doak, 2009; Erkip et al., 2013; Evers, 2001; Garside et al., 2003; Goncalves and Ferreira, 2015; Guy, 2007; Henderson, 2011; Wiese et al., 2015; Yrjänä, 2012; Zetter and Watson, 2006). Although there has been quite a clear consensus on the certain impacts of out-of-town centres, there seem to be difficulties in finding a holistic planning policy approach that would reduce these impacts. Therefore, planning policies are constantly changing from being restrictive to being relaxed and back again, depending on which retail policy objectives are being politically prioritised (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004). For example, in the UK the negative effects of out-of-town retailing were addressed by providing planning policy guidance in 1996, with the objective of protecting the existing town centres (Guy, 2007; Hallsworth et al., 1997; Sadun, 2015). This was in contrast to the 1980s policy in which retail developers were encouraged by the central government to expand out of town (Guy, 2007). In the Netherlands, planning policy for retail spaces has always been strongly focused on protecting the existing retail structures and, for a long period, retail location policy was strictly controlled on the national level (Van der

Krabben, 2009). However, since 2004, the Dutch national government allowed a decentralised planning model that was believed to be able to address the negative impacts of out-of-town retailing more efficiently (Janssen-Jansen, 2016; Van der Krabben, 2009). Also in Finland, the motivation for new retail planning regulations in 1999 was the protection of small local stores and town centres and more power was given to municipalities to control new retail development. These regulations were made even more restrictive in 2011 in order to tackle the negative environmental impacts of out-of-town retailing as part of climate change mitigation policies (Yrjänä, 2012). However, since 2016, the regulations have been relaxed to some extent. Similar concerns over growing, large out-of-town retailing have been observed in France and Denmark (Tuohimaa, 1996). As seen in the previous examples, there seem to be similarities in the motivations to guide retail planning. However, due to the differences in the cultural framework, governance and planning systems of these European countries, the chosen policy approaches to retail planning differ (see for example, Fernandes and Chamusca, 2014). Extra pressure comes from the requirement of the European Union that all the member states should integrate sustainability into all their policies and activities as well as the rising importance of corporate social responsibility. However, integrating sustainability in retail planning policies is a complex and multidimensional task for policymakers as they have to address the needs of the retail industry and encourage competition;

⁎ Corresponding author at: Real Estate Research Group, Department of Built Environment, School of Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 14100, 00076, AALTO, Espoo, Finland. E-mail address: anahita.rashidfarokhi@aalto.fi (A. Rashidfarokhi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.08.013 Received 18 October 2017; Received in revised form 13 July 2018; Accepted 7 August 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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academics and policy makers regarding if more control over the growth of out-of-town centres reduces the negative impacts of retailing from a sustainability point of view (Breheny, 1995). The definition of sustainable development has become the core of policy debates all over the world since the Earth Summit conference in Rio in 1992, where the attention was focused on the potential of policy action to achieve sustainable development (Mazza and Rydin, 1997). This has led to the emergence of a large body of literature. The terms sustainable development and sustainability have now come into mutual parlance, referring to development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs’ (Brundtland Commission, 1987). The concept of needs deals with the economic growth that is necessary for the fulfilment of the needs. It also has a social aspect as the matter is not only about changing the present consumption of resources for the sake of future generations, but it is also about recognising that the definition of needs is dependent on a range of cultural norms and values (Mazza and Rydin, 1997). Simultaneously, meeting the needs of the present involves debate on the limited environmental resources, our extensive GHG emissions and the destruction of natural habitats. Finding a balanced policy solution to these contradictory dimensions is often a challenge and retail planning is an area in which this is not an exception. The majority of the extant studies on retail planning and policies have focused on specific sustainability problematics. However, in order to understand the linkages between sustainable development and retail planning policies we need a holistic picture that shows the interconnections and contradictions between the different sustainability impacts of retail planning. Thus, in the following paragraphs, we present the impacts identified from the literature under the three dimensions of sustainability. The identified impacts will work as the base for developing a holistic retail planning sustainability framework. The framework is presented in Section 3 and is used to categorise the sustainability impacts identified from the policy discourse on retail planning in Section 4.

provide an equitable system of shopping opportunities for all groups; preserve the old traditions and legacies; and reduce the negative environmental impacts of the retail location (Bell et al., 1997; Campbell, 2016; Jackson and Watkins, 2005; Jones, 2014). Although the literature recognises the importance of planning regulations, still relatively little is known about how these regulations actually affect retailing (Nishida, 2014) and how the stakeholders of the retail planning process react to these changes. Various stakeholders are involved in the retail planning process and have diverse and often contradictory concerns about the sustainability of retail planning policies. A better understanding of the reasoning for the raised concerns is imperative in capturing the complexity of the issue. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify and categorise the sustainability concerns raised in retail planning policy discourse, using empirical data from Finland. In order to identify the concerns, we conduct a critical discourse analysis of the policy discourse presented in the media, especially in newspaper articles. The discourse was analysed chronologically between 1990 and 2015 in order to understand the evolution of the sustainability concerns and the changes in the policy debate. We used public discourse as a source because it has a role in forming the interpretation of political dilemma and affects the perceptions of what is at stake in a policy debate (Radaelli, 2003). By highlighting certain opinions and concerns, public discourse also has the ability to transform the interests and preferences upon which negotiations are structured (Radaelli, 2003; Phillips et al., 2004). From public discourse, we can analyse the ongoing policy debate and see how the objectives are discursively formulated and communicated to stakeholders (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004). Media has a prime role in communicating information and simultaneously acts as a platform for pushing different agendas in the policy debate (Saraisky, 2016). Media frames the issues, ideas and themes that serve as key elements in the ongoing policy discourse among citizens, policymakers and journalists (Saraisky, 2016). By increasing the knowledge of the concerns under debate in the policy discourse we can help policy makers to understand the multidimensionality of sustainability concerns related to retail planning. Addressing these concerns could, in turn, improve the legitimacy of new retail planning policies. The originality of this study lies in the application of a framework which helps us break down the raised concerns into different dimensions of sustainability, understand their interconnections and see what concerns are prioritised in the policy discourse. The framework is developed based on a comprehensive review of the extant retail literature and increases the holistic understanding of the multidimensionality of the sustainability of retail planning, which to the authors’ knowledge was missing from the field. The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews existing literature on the economic, environmental and social impacts of retail planning. Section 3 describes the development of retailing and the legislation for retail planning in Finland and explains the methodology for collecting and categorising the policy discourse in Finland. Section 4 presents the categorised sustainability concerns identified from the policy discourse and discusses the evolution of the policy debate. Section 5 provides the concluding remarks.

2.1. Economic impacts Retail planning affects the economy in several ways. Retail location affects the number of customers, the retail sales and, therefore, the profitability (Chhetri et al., 2017; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). Retail planning also contributes to economic viability (evening economy), cost efficiency and economic regeneration (Ghadge et al., 2016; Hallsworth et al., 1997; Jones et al., 2007; Lowe, 2005). Retail also plays a role in providing employment opportunities for the local population and generates tax money for municipalities (De Sousa, 2000; Padilla et al., 2017; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). With retail planning we can promote the competitive environment (Guy and Bennison, 2002; Padilla et al., 2017), and support the viability and vitality of town centres by offering a mix of shops and services that address the daily needs of citizens (Jones et al., 2007; Padilla et al., 2017; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). 2.2. Environmental impacts Retail planning plays a major role in urban environmental sustainability. The location of retail affects the mode of transportation (private or public) that consumers can choose (Arranz-Lopez et al., 2017; Björklund et al., 2016; Guy, 2007; Hallsworth et al., 1997; Jiao et al., 2016; Soltani and Allan, 2006; Wiese et al., 2015; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). The contribution of retail location to urban freight, trip length, GHG emissions and air/noise pollution mitigation could be achieved by focusing on accessibility (Carley et al., 2001; Cherrett et al., 2012; Chhetri et al., 2017; Ghadge et al., 2016; Guy and Bennison, 2002; Jiao et al., 2016; Määttä-Juntunen et al., 2011; Wiese et al., 2015). Out-oftown retailing causes urban sprawl, which can have a negative impact on greenfield sites. Locating retail to brownfield sites could contribute to the protection of biodiversity and green areas (Erkip et al., 2013; De

2. The sustainability impacts of retail planning policy The decentralisation of retailing has been a continuous trend over several decades (Jones, 2014). The reason to locate out of town came from the increased need for space, firstly from grocery retailers, secondly from bulk retailers, and the development of large shopping centres caused the third wave of out-of-town retailing (Ratcliffe et al., 2009). Consumers also preferred out-of-town centres due to the lower prices and a wider selection of goods that these centres could provide (Guy, 2007). The negative impact of out-of-town centres on the viability of the existing town centres, equal accessibility, urban sprawl and increased emissions have prompted a substantial debate among 191

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2000 square meters floor space, however, it did not stop the sprawl of large-scale retailing. Because of the global recession in the late 2000s, there was a decline in retail development; however, the ongoing trend of large-scale retailing caused the legislation to be tightened in 2011, which most likely led to the rise of large-scale retail development just before the legislation came into force (as seen in the rise of new-built units in 2012). In the year 2016, the classification was raised to 4000 square meters floor space and the law states that the focus of retail planning should be on accessibility. Finnish grocery retailing differs from most of the European grocery retailing as it has a duopoly structure. In the beginning of the 1990s there were several dominant players that owned over 90% of the market share; however, gradually, the other retail groups were sold to S-Group and Kesko, the two current dominant players in the field that have a market share of almost 80% (Finnish Grocery Trade Association, 2016). Earlier on, to increase the viability of small local stores, the opening hours of the small stores were more relaxed than the larger stores in order to give them a competitive advantage. During the period of the discourse analysis, opening hours have been increasingly relaxed in Finland. Currently, the opening hours for large retail units have been freed, which have caused concerns about the viability of small local stores that have now lost their competitive advantage.

Sousa, 2000; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). Developing mixed-use retail contributes to less retail trips (due to combined-purpose visits), which reduces the externalities of transportation on the environment (Guy, 2007; Guy and Bennison, 2002; Syrman, 2012; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). 2.3. Social impacts Retail planning can affect the level of social inclusion and social vitality (Erkip et al., 2013; Guy, 2007; Soltani and Allan, 2006; DelcosAlio and Miralles-Guasch, 2018; Denoon-Stevens, 2016). A wrong decision may result in unequal accessibility for some social segments, such as mobility impaired, elderly, non-car owners and lower-income class (Carley et al., 2001; Garside et al., 2003; Guy, 2007; Jones et al., 2007; Yan and Eckman, 2009). Retail planning can also contribute to liveability and the improvement of community facilities, which both increase the sense of community, quality of life and public well-being (Carley et al., 2001; Jones et al., 2007; Kyle and Blair, 2007; Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). New retail development can also improve the architectural and design quality that, at the same time, increase the comfort, safety and flexibility of an area (Denoon-Stevens, 2016; Kyle and Blair, 2007; Lowe, 2005; Niemi et al., 2012; Yan and Eckman, 2009). Retail planning also affects the employment opportunities for local communities (Carley et al., 2001; Jones et al., 2007; Padilla et al., 2017). The sustainability framework in its final shape is presented in subsection 4.2.

3.2. Discourse analysis and the coding system To identify the issues raised in the policy discourse, we applied critical discourse analysis on newspaper articles and other media sources handling the subject that were published between 1990 and 2015. Critical discourse analysis was employed as it combines the contextuality and intertextuality of discourse analysis, and aims for revealing the underlying assumptions and historical dimensions of the discourse (Vaara et al., 2006). Critical discourse analysis focuses on understanding the causes, conditions and consequences of pressing social issues, as well as how these issues are framed and understood (McKenna, 2011; Van Dijk, 1993). This method has also been used to reveal how discourse is used to sustain the power relations and legitimise changes (see, for example, Vaara et al., 2006). The data for discourse analysis was mainly collected from Helsingin Sanomat (the leading and the most read Finnish daily newspaper) archive. Newspaper articles are a significant source for researching policy discourse, as media has the power to influence knowledge, beliefs, values, social relations and social identities (Fairclough, 1995, p. 2). In addition, policy publications and task force meeting records were analysed in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. The assessment of the articles was conducted in Finnish. We used keywords such as retail guidance, retail regulation, retail planning and outof-town retailing, which resulted in 362 articles that were the most relevant to the context of our paper, regardless of which section of the newspaper they appeared in. The approach of the collected articles varied from a more narrative approach (explaining what is happening) to a more argumentative approach (explaining who is doing what and why). In many cases, these two approaches were mixed. There was a wide range of retail planning stakeholders involved in the discourse, including politicians, public sector representatives, retailers and consumers. The majority of the newspaper articles were written by journalists, but they also included the opinion pieces of retailers, politicians and public sector actors. The task force meeting records included the opinions of the task force members, as well as the presentations of the professionals invited to the meetings. The critical discourse analysis was done on three levels, based on the work of Vaara et al. (2006): a textual level (what words were chosen to describe the issues), a discursive practices level (how practices were framed and interpreted) and a social practice level (how practice was situated in the wider institutional context). In our study, we are looking at policy as an institution that, according to Fairclough (1995), provides

3. Research design Our study employed discourse and content analysis methods in order to identify and categorise the sustainability concerns raised in the retail planning policy discourse, using empirical evidence from Finland. First, this section describes the development of retailing and the legislation for retail planning in Finland. Second, the discourse analysis process is detailed and the development of the framework, which is used as a coding system for categorising the sustainability concerns, is described. 3.1. The development of retailing and the legislation for retail planning in Finland In Finland, retail planning guidance is part of the Land Use and Building Act (1999/132, 2016), LUBA, that also includes various sustainable development goals for urban planning. Retail planning guidance was added to LUBA in 1999, a year before LUBA was revised, as the need to control large format retail was seen as so important that new legislation needed to be put in force as soon as possible. This right to control was taken away from the municipalities earlier in 1982 when the Supreme Court had ruled that municipalities could not restrict the trade or size of grocery retailing. However, the structural change, especially in grocery retailing, generated the need for more control over retail planning. As seen in Fig. 1, the growth of large retailing had started in the 1980s and continued until the national recession in Finland that occurred between 1990 and 1993. After the recession, large retail formats became the focus of retail development. This structural change, together with the national recession, caused the death of a large number of smaller stores (Finnish Grocery Trade Association, 2018). New retail planning guidance that came into force in 1999, controlling the size and location of large retail units (which were defined as units with over 2000 square meters floor space until 2016). According to LUBA, large units are not allowed to be located outside an area defined as the city centre (in the regional and master plans) unless that area is specifically marked for that purpose in the detailed plan or the regional plan. Therefore, for retailing, it is of utmost importance how the centres are defined in the plans. Fig. 1 shows how the new retail planning guidance caused the growth of stores that had under 192

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Fig. 1. The difference in the size of retail development in Finland between 1980 and 2015 (VTJ/VRK 4/2015).

4. Results and discussion

a frame of action for its members, which in turn facilitates (and at the same time restricts) their actions. By studying discourses, which are seen as the ways in which reality is produced and made real (Phillips and Hardy, 2002), we can reveal the discursive process of institutional change in the policies. To categorise the sustainability issues identified through discourse analysis, we developed a holistic sustainability framework based on a comprehensive review of the extant retail literature. To develop this framework we followed the following procedure. First, we collected and reviewed the existing relevant academic literature (discussed in Section 2) and conducted content analysis for each document in order to identify sustainability impacts related to retail planning. Through content analysis, we identified 45 impacts. Third, we analysed the content of the identified impacts in order to combine the elements that had similar content, which reduced the number of elements from 45 to 18. The developed framework is presented in Table 1. The framework consists of all the impacts that were identified in the literature without giving weight based on the number of times they were mentioned in the literature. However, when the framework is employed to categorise the discourse, we considered the frequency of the concerns mentioned in the policy debate in order to see what impacts are prioritised. As we are looking at the policy discourse chronologically, we will get a picture of the evolution of different impacts in different eras. This research on the sustainability concerns reveals the reasoning behind the changes in the retail policies. This analysis is presented in Section 4.

In this section, the findings of the analysis of the retail planning policy discourse in Finland are presented and discussed. The analysis showed two periods where the discourse on retail planning policies intensified, and therefore, the results are divided into two subsections in order to provide a picture of the evolvement of the policy discourse and the change in the main sustainability concerns in the 1990s and 2000s. 4.1. Sustainability concerns in the retail planning policy discourse of the 1990s The discourse on the negative impacts of out-of-town retailing was ongoing throughout the 1990s, however, the discourse on retail planning policies intensified in the newspaper articles of the late 1990s. It was stated that a market boom was happening as large retail centres were being planned and constructed at an ever-increasing pace. This was also because Finland had gone through the recession in the early 1990s and many schemes planned earlier were now being put into action. Out-of-town retail centres were called peltomarket (field market) or automarket (car market) in order to show their size and distance from city centres and housing areas. Many newspaper articles argued that large out-of-town retail centres destroyed old city centres and changed the retail structure, particularly in smaller towns. As the Minister of Environment, Haavisto, stated: Fear is also appropriate in the outskirts of cities since experience shows that giant markets result in retail destruction in large areas all over the region. (Ojansivu, 1996)

Table 1 The sustainability framework for retail planning policy. General sustainability groups Economic

Environmental

Social

Sustainability impacts -

Profitability Economic regeneration Town centre vitality Employment Economic viability Competition Mode of transport Accessibility Urban sprawl Mix of use GHG emissions Urban freight Social inclusion Quality of life Safety Sense of community Equity Local employment

There was a fear that large retail centres would diminish local jobs from the existing city centres and smaller retailers were afraid of their profitability. The viability of local services was seen important, especially for the growing number of elderly. On the other hand, in the municipalities with smaller populations, developing large centres was seen as a way to increase the local employment and tax revenues. It was seen that consumers prefer the larger centres because of the benefits of lower prices and wider selection that they provide; however, there were also problematics, as people without a car were not able to enjoy those benefits. The municipalities seemed powerless to stop the sprawl of large centres as the largest retailers had such control over the market and development of new retail centres. As also described by the Mayor of the City of Kerava, Kettunen: It is not up to one municipality to stop the structural change happening in 193

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new employment opportunities, as they might also diminish jobs in the existing centres. The impact of retail planning on employment is also discussed by Padilla et al. (2017), who found that although shopping centres create jobs, they cause a larger negative impact on the jobs in the area. The effect on town centre viability is also related to social sustainability, as small stores or small shopping centres were seen to play an important role in increasing the ease of everyday lives of consumers as they provide local services that are especially important for elderly. Local stores were also seen important in the UK as they create a sense of place and increase the public health and safety, especially for the ageing population (Kyle and Blair, 2007). There was a strong belief in the discourse that larger stores affect the equity of shopping opportunities and similar impacts have also been identified by Carley et al. (2001) and Guy (2007), especially in terms of discrimination against non-car owners. The death of local services was also linked to the environmental dimension in the discourse as they were seen to cause urban sprawl and increase car dependency. It has also been noticed by other researchers that the distance and scale of retailing has a direct link to the mode of transport and accessibility (see, for example, Jiao et al., 2016; Soltani and Allan, 2006).

the retail sector. If the companies aren’t allowed to come to Kerava, they will go somewhere else. (Aho, 1993) This led the fight between municipalities over large-scale development. The powerlessness of municipalities and the negative impacts of large out-of-town retail centres brought forward the need for control over large-scale retail development. The Minister of the Environment in the late 1990s, Haavisto, stated that Finland should start regulating retail planning as other European countries have done: Decision makers must have a discussion on whether we want to have Finnish cities turning into centralised European cities or forming decentralised American car cities. (Salmela, 1996) Haavisto appointed a task force to consider the possible planning guidance of large retail stores. The task force made suggestions to address several issues, for instance, that the operating conditions for retail development in the city centres and housing areas should be improved, the co-operation in planning retail services at municipality level should be promoted and guidance for large retail centres (with possible new laws on planning) should be created. Policymakers acted upon the latter suggestion and it was decided that stricter guidance for retail planning would be added to LUBA (which was being reformed at the time). This raised new economic concerns, mainly from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, about the possible impacts of the new regulations on competition; however, Minister Haavisto defended the new regulations as it affects all the actors in the market, and is therefore neutral. In addition, retailers warned that stricter guidance would cause the retail centres to spread even further out of town, where the planning restrictions are not as tight, and this would cause negative environmental impacts through urban sprawl and increased traffic flow. Despite the raised concerns, politicians saw the need to control retail development so important that the new legislation on retail planning came into force in 1999, a year earlier than the enforcement of LUBA. The concerns identified and analysed from the discourse of the 1990s were categorised with the help of the developed framework and are presented in Table 2. In addition, to show the difference in the frequency of the sustainability concerns, Table 2 also provides the share of each sustainability dimension from the discourse of the 1990s. The discourse analysis revealed that socio-economic concerns had the highest share (73%) of the discourse as the main concern raised in the 1990s was about the vitality of the existing town-centres that is linked to both economic and social dimensions. From the economic viewpoint, the increasing number of large out-of-town retail units impose a threat to the existing retail structure. However, Guy and Bennison (2002) found there is also a positive impact of out-of-town centres on the competition in the market. Larger stores were assumed by municipalities to provide tax money and employment opportunities, and therefore, many municipalities fought over large retail schemes. However, there was a discussion over the real impact of larger stores on

4.2. Sustainability concerns in the retail planning policy discourse in the 2000s Another clear rise in the discourse on retail planning policy was observed in the period of 2007–2015. Large out-of-town centres were now referred to as kauppakeskus (shopping centre) instead of automarket (car markets), which implies a change in the way they were seen as a norm and became more accepted as part of the retail structure. One reason is that the amount of large retail schemes was still rising, despite the changes in the retail planning policies, and real estate developers became more interested in building mega shopping centres out-of-town. The mix of services that large centres provided was attracting customers, even from far distances. In some cases, neighbouring municipalities were both scheming for large retail centres on each side of the municipality border. This caused the raise of similar concerns to those of the 1990s, because it was feared that the increased number of schemes, especially larger schemes, would create an oversupply of retail space and move the centre of retail from town centres to large regional centres. Tulkki, from the Ministry of Environment also raised the significance of size compared to the surrounding structure: Retail plans need to be adapted to customer potential. Each region should have services that they can maintain without having to scrape together customers from 50 to 100 km away. (Huuskonen, 2009) In 2008, the Ministry of the Environment made a study on the volume of large retail units that were being developed and planned. The study claims that these schemes could have a huge impact on the implementation of the climate change mitigation objectives that had been

Table 2 Sustainability impacts of retail planning in policy discourse in Finland in 1990′s. Concerns identified from the discourse -

The death of small stores The viability of small town centres Competition between municipalities Power of grocery retailers in the market Increased car-dependency Accessibility with public transport Increased trip length Loss of local services especially for elderly Vitality of the neighbourhood Spatial equity of retail services The loss of local jobs

Sustainability impacts

Sustainability dimensions

Weight in the discourse

Town centre vitality

Economic

38%

Environmental

27%

Social

35%

Competition Mode of transport Accessibility Urban sprawl Social inclusion Quality of life Equity Local employment

194

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Table 3 Sustainability concerns of retail planning in policy discourse in Finland in 2000′s. Concerns identified from the discourse

Sustainability impacts

Sustainability dimensions

Weight in the discourse

- The viability of town centres - Competition between municipalities - Barriers to enter the market caused by legislation - Increased traffic if only accessible by car - Fragmented retail structure that causes traffic - Urban decentralisation - Accessibility with public transport - Effect of increased traffic to climate change - The loss of local services especially for elderly - Neighbourhood degeneration

Town centre vitality Competition

Economic

37%

Mode of transport Urban sprawl

Environmental

40%

Social

23%

Accessibility GHG emissions Social inclusion Quality of life

number of available retail plots and make the time needed for zoning longer. Therefore, it was seen that the existing players with a large market share, especially in grocery retailing, had a clear advantage. Moreover, it was sometimes questioned by the representatives of the retail sector whether the planners and politicians had forgotten that retailing is a business that needs to be profitable. As, the managing director of the Finnish Commerce Federation, Pekkala, also mentioned: ‘Retailing is not a provision system under the guidance of the society – it’s business’ (Huuskonen, 2009). The retailers also wondered whether the planners have the best understanding of retail plots and the future of retail. Retailers especially criticised the regional planning processes, where planners had predicted the future need for retail space for over 20 years. Retailers claimed that changes in retailing happen at such a quick pace that predicting the future need for retail space for such a long period is impossible. Both the concerns highlighted in the 2000s and the share of each sustainability dimension identified from the discourse are presented in Table 3. The economic concerns in the 2000s were related to the viability of the existing town centres and competition between municipalities over large retail schemes. However, since the changes in 2011, competition became a focal point in the discourse, due to the possible undesired impacts of the stricter planning guidance on the competition in the market. Stricter guidance can have effects that sometimes work against the initial objectives. For example, Sadun (2015) found that in the UK, independent retailers were harmed by a tightened regulation, even though it was set out to protect them, as the entry barriers introduced against large stores created an incentive for large retail chains to invest in smaller and more centrally located formats. These formats competed more directly with the smaller independent stores and accelerated their decline (Sadun, 2015). The analysis shows that, during the 2000s, the climate change discourse highlighted the negative environmental impacts of out-of-town retailing. This trend is shown in the growth of the share of environmental concerns in Table 3, compared to the share in the 1990′s. Urban sprawl, increased traffic flow and GHG emissions were used in the discourse as the arguments for having even more control over out-of-town retailing. It was emphasised in the discourse that retail centres should be accessible by public transport. The effect of out-of-town centres on car dependency and an increased level of CO2 emissions has been highlighted by scholars (for instance, Jiao et al., 2016; Määttä-Juntunen et al., 2011; Wiese et al., 2015). While large retail centres were criticised in the policy discourse for increasing traffic, it was also pointed out by retailers that they provide a mix of use and therefore decrease the number of trips, which lessens the traffic. It was often forgotten in the discourse that, in addition to the location of retailing, the location of jobs and public services also affect the mode of transport and trip frequency. Guy and Bennison (2002) also mentioned the benefits of mixed-use retailing, as they found clear evidence that the mixed use out-of-town shopping centres reduce shopping trip frequencies and distances travelled. Furthermore, securing local

added to the strategy of the Ministry of the Environment, as well as impacting on the national strategy for sustainable development (Yrjölä, 2009). In response, retailers explained that there are always a lot of plans and schemes, but they are not all going to be implemented. Retailers also defended the larger stores by saying that consumers have already taken them as their own and smaller stores could not provide the range of choices available in the larger stores. Our analysis showed that when a specific type of large out-of-town retail unit (Ideapark) was being built on the outskirts of the city of Tampere and more units with the same concept were planned to be built, it infused a reaction in the policy discourse as it was claimed that they would be too far away from the urban structure and cause increased traffic and GHG emissions. There was also discussion on the close relationship between the retailers and politicians acting in the positions of trust in the retail sector. For example, in one case corruption charges were raised as a politician was suspected to have been getting election money indirectly from a retailing group as he was working as the chairperson of the board of the regional council of southwest Finland, where he could have affected decisions in the favour of the retailing group while retail development was being planned. This case has led to stricter regulations that require further transparency on the given election money. The findings from the discourse show that it was also believed these allegations acted in favour of stricter guidance on retail planning that was under discussion at the time. Our analysis shows that the Minister in charge of Housing (as part of the Ministry of Environment), Vapaavuori, took climate change mitigation as the main reason to oppose the development of large regional units. The argument for climate change mitigation was so strong that it made it difficult for other stakeholders to argue against it, although retailers tried to defend the larger units by explaining that they provide a mix of use that reduces the number of shopping trips. Vapaavuori set a task force to deliberate the possible new changes to the legislation. The task force proposed several suggestions: the main one was that large format retail – meaning, for example, furniture and car retailing – should also be regulated by retail planning legislation (as they were left out of the scope of LUBA earlier in 1999). Based on the task force’s suggestions, changes to the regulations came into force in 2011 that required the consideration of environmental impacts and effects on the current service network when planning large-scale retail. The changes also meant that all large-scale retailing has to be marked in the regional plans, which are approved by the Ministry of the Environment. This induced criticism from regional directors, who felt their power to control the development of the region was diminished. The changes also caused other ministries, such as the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, to express their concerns related to the effects of stricter planning guidance on competition. The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority and the Finnish Commerce Federation shared this concern and they stated that it is almost impossible for new retailers to enter the market as all the retail locations were already decided in the plans. Retailers feared that this would decrease the

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interconnections need to be holistically understood and considered when retail planning policies are made.

retail services for the growing number of elderly people was still seen as a vital factor that contributes to social inclusion and a better quality of life. When comparing the results of the discourse analysis with the impacts identified from the literature, we could clearly see that some impacts are either more highlighted or neglected in the discourse. For instance, brownfield redevelopment did not appear in the discourse as such, but the problematics of locating large retailing in the city centres were discussed, as old sites have more zoning regulations and are costly to modify. Despite the massive debate on the impacts of large out-oftown centres on shopping trips, less notice was given to their impact on urban freight. Larger stores, when compared to a network of smaller stores, may reduce urban freight by requiring fewer deliveries and transporting larger amounts in the same delivery (Cherrett et al., 2012). Safety was mentioned in a few cases when discussing the degeneration of old malls, but was not seen as a concern when discussing the location of large centres. The impact of location on quality of life was discussed from the viewpoint of local services, but how improved urban design could provide retailers and consumers with more comfortable spaces that are at the same time flexible for re-use in the future was not discussed (as also raised by Niemi et al. (2012)). Although the protection of local stores was seen as an important objective, the profitability problems of smaller stores were often forgotten and were mainly discussed in the context of the opening hours’ regulation. In the 1990s more relaxed opening hours for smaller stores increased their viability, but the advantage was taken away later on as the opening hours were also relaxed for the larger units. These problematics caused by the deregulation of opening hours were also noticed in Australia, and stronger land use regulations and location guidelines were suggested by Baker and Wood (2010) as a way of maintaining the viability and vitality of town centres. In Finland, the two main policies controlling retail (retail location guidance and the regulation of opening hours) have moved in opposite directions. According to Bell et al. (1997), public policies (such as retail location guidance) should change from being reactive to being proactive. They suggest that a deeper understanding of retail trends would increase consumer welfare in various sections of society. However, understanding retail trends is a challenging task even for retailers who try to predict the changes in consumer behaviour (for example, interest in local food, increased environmental awareness and online shopping) and adapt to the several forces of change (e.g. digitalisation, globalisation, environmental pressure and free trade) that shape the future of the retail environment and related land use (Grewal et al., 2009; Jones, 2014; Rashidfarokhi et al., 2018a; Toivonen, 2011; Toivonen and Viitanen, 2015, 2016). This makes it challenging for planners to predict the market forces and make sustainable planning outcomes that meet the interests and concerns of stakeholders. Goncalves and Ferreira (2015) have also brought forward the need for flexibility in spatial planning in response to the fast-paced changes in retailing. Overall, the discourse analysis showed the multidimensionality of the concerns linked to the retail planning policies. Using the framework showed that the concerns related to the different sustainability impacts are intertwined and the actions that are taken to control certain unwanted impacts cause concerns about other sustainability issues. The challenge might be within the concept of sustainability that aims for a balance between economic, environmental and social dimensions, despite the inherent conflicts and imbalance between them. For example, an out-of-town centre might be economically profitable and preferred by consumers, however, it has negative environmental and social impacts. In the case of retail planning it might be that win–win situations are not always achievable and a viable compromise, suggested by Campbell (2016), between the sustainable and unsustainable practices should be considered instead of seeking for an elusive balance between economic, environmental and social dimensions as a prerequisite for sustainability. However, we argue that, in order to achieve a working compromise, the sustainability impacts of retail planning and their

5. Conclusions This paper investigates the ongoing interaction between policy discourse and policymaking, and reveals the sustainability concerns that are used to justify and oppose the changes in retail planning policies. In addition, the findings show the multitude of sustainability concerns linked to retail planning policy and the problematics of finding a holistic policy solution to retail planning. According to our findings, we can conclude that sustainable development policies introduce changes to retail planning, but similarly, new retail planning policies cause new impacts on sustainable development. These impacts can be positive and negative or intended and unintended. The research findings on the sustainability concerns raised in the policy discourse show that the discourse of the 1990s was concentrated on the social and economic concerns (together accounting for 78% of the discourse) of out-of-town retailing and, as the discourse developed in the 2000s, more focus was given to environmental concerns (accounting for 40% of the discourse). This is most likely due to the significant impact of climate change discourse and the need to employ policies that promote sustainable development, especially from the viewpoint of lower emissions and traffic. However, after the retail planning policy became tighter in 2011, economic impacts became the main focus of the discourse as other ministries and authorities expressed their concerns over the negative effects of the regulation on competition and consumer prices. Our analysis shows that two ministers of the Ministry of Environment took a very active role in the discourse and can be seen as policy entrepreneurs because they were the main drivers of change. As these actors are politicians, it is very important to keep in mind that they usually have an agenda of getting re-elected and they want to get their voice heard and their policy agendas through. As Pierson (1994) says, they want to get the two goals – getting re-elected and making a difference – to be mutually reinforcing. The actors use public discourse as a way to legitimise the actions they are taking, which helps the institutionalisation of these changes. Our analysis shows that increased control over retail planning was seen as the main approach to preventing the spread of out-of-town retailing and other ways to promote in-town development were neglected. For example, the 1990s task force’s proposal to ease the operating conditions for town centre development and improved cooperation in retail have received less attention. The difficulty of enhancing operating conditions for retail in the city centres comes from the fragmented real estate ownership and tighter regulations in the detailed plans in the central areas. There are also problematics in improving cooperation in retail planning, even though it is encouraged by retail stakeholders (Yrjänä and Uotinen, 2010). Collaboration in planning may increase local decision-making that can be without a clear vision of future or regional plans (Van der Krabben, 2009) and can also make the planning process slower and more costly. However, integrating other social sustainability themes to collaborative planning could help policymakers and planners to build consensus, avoid conflicts and increase the legitimacy of retail planning (Rashidfarokhi et al., 2018b). Goncalves and Ferreira (2015) highlighted the importance of having a strategic approach and governance processes that lead to an equilibrium between the economic interest of the public sector and the social and environmental concerns of citizens. The contribution of this paper lies in increasing the holistic understanding of the multidimensionality of the sustainability impacts of retail planning and in revealing the problematics of the retail planning policy making. Yet, the reliability of the empirical findings from the media is arguable, as the collected policy discourse from the media is most likely affected by reporters’ bias or power relations of the stakeholders. However, it is always the case when studying public discourse 196

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through the media and makes media one of the stakeholders affecting the discourse. A deeper understanding of the legitimation strategies of policy actors would provide more knowledge of how retail planning policy changes are justified in policy discourse. In addition, studying the challenges composed by the different time frames of retailers and planners with regard to location and possible solutions to overcome them could be of value.

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