2025 Volume 71 Issue 2 Pages 76-100
The revitalisation of town centres and shopping streets is one of the key issues challenging public sectors in many locations. This paper identifies the fundamental bottleneck in the revitalisation process of these urban areas. To systematically analyse public policies and research, a comprehensive categorisation framework for land use was developed, integrating perspectives on owner involvement and management intensity. Using this framework, urban laws, administrative documents, surveys and previous studies were classified to assess the scope and limitations of current approaches. The findings indicate that existing policies and discussions primarily focused on visible symptoms of decline, such as vacant shopfronts, urban hollowing-out, and ‘spongification’ (a form of urban perforation). Crucially, they overlooked a significant invisible bottleneck: the inaccessibility to idle and underutilised land. These properties, while physically present, remain functionally inaccessible to potential tenants and developers, thus impeding effective urban regeneration. This oversight is associated with five key factors: (1) the lack of issue framing to distinguish land use, ownership and management; (2) the excessive emphasis on visible physical structures within urban planning paradigms; (3) the policy bias favouring large-scale developers and established organisations; (4) the diminished incentives for stakeholders involved in urban development and real estate transactions; finally, (5) the absence of integrated policy guidelines coordinating economic and geographic objectives regarding real estate. In conclusion, the inaccessibility to idle and underutilised land constitutes a critical and previously underestimated bottleneck in town centre regeneration. Effective revitalisation policy requires a shift in focus towards ‘unclogging’ the urban sponge by promoting autonomous real estate transactions in target areas.
