Business-to-consumer (b2c) e-commerce can be regarded as a disruptive process innovation that can make existing business models obsolete. B2c e-commerce provides retailers the possibility of a new service concept, new client interface and even delivery system. The history of retailing is replete...

This article investigates the relationship between zoning by-laws, as put forward in governmental land-use plans and the viability of urban residential neighbourhood economies. The Dutch planning tradition has long been characterized by strict separation of functions and top-down planning. We...

With industrialisation and rationalisation of the Western economy, the scale of production became larger, production costs declined and competitiveness rose (Kloosterman and van der Leun 2004). It was thought that Economies of scale would weed out small-business. This seems plausible: As a...

Aldous Huxley's novel <roman>Brave New World</roman> (Longman, Harlow, 1932/1991) portrayed a post-human world, a world where human beings were mass-produced like clones and kept in complete happiness through an endless variation of seductions and pleasures. This essay explores parallels in contemporary urban...

While the European Union aims to diminish and remove borders as obstacles for integration, state borders continue to mark differences between countries. People living in borderlands may feel near to and familiar with "the other side" but far away and unfamiliar at the same time. Scrutinizing the...

National borders are often considered to constrain the international flow of products, services, people and capital. However, borders and differences between countries could also promote cross-border mobility. This contribution investigates what discourages and encourages cross-border shopping...

Since the construction of the hierarchical retail system in the postwar period, the main goal of Dutch retail planning has been to preserve city centres and the complementary shopping centres. National guidelines restricted the development of large-scale retail locations on peripheral sites....

In this special issue, we seek to explore experiences, performances and effects of both “unfamiliarity” and “familiarity” across a diversity of inner and outer borders of the European Union. In EU integration discourse, cross-border unfamiliarity is usually considered to obstruct...