Mid-sized towns want to bring shops back to the city centre

In Dole (Jura, 24.000 inhabitants), commercial vacancies in the city centre have fallen from 20 to 6% in 10 years, says LR mayor Jean-Baptiste Gagnoux.

"It's the image we project of our city," he told AFP to underline the importance of this trend.

"When you visit a city, you go to the centre because that's where it's happening. If you find a city that's completely degraded, with one in two businesses closed, you're going to send back an image of a city that's losing momentum," says the elected official.

In Dole, a "Heart of the City" initiative preceded the national "Action Heart of the City" program launched in 2018 and its counterpart "Small Towns of Tomorrow" for small municipalities.

Dole created a public company to buy and renovate vacant businesses, at the same time as it "gave a facelift" to the center, by changing the public lighting and renovating the facades.

While the mayor notes that "people are consuming less" since inflation accelerated in 2022, this has "no visible effect on commercial vacancies... for the moment".

Rehabilitate

According to the Procos traders' federation, the vacancy rate at the foot of buildings, the most common form of commerce in city centres, is close to that of all businesses (9,8% compared to 9,7% in 2023).

Its evolution, with vacancy rising again in 2023 (+0,6 points) after three years of decline, is also close to the average (+0,5).

Figures less good than in commercial areas (6,6%, stable evolution) but better than in shopping centers (14,9%, +0,9 points).

The "Action Coeur de ville" program, which aims to rehabilitate the buildings in city centers, has had largely beneficial effects, experts and elected officials testified at the Sélestat congress.

"The best way to help traders is to boost our town centres, to create some excitement there and to bring residents back," said Christine Guillemy, MoDem mayor of Chaumont (Haute-Marne, 21.000 inhabitants), during a round table.

Rehabilitating housing there makes the streets less run down and more attractive, she explained.

But she added that she had fought to maintain public services there, which were also tempted to move to the outskirts.

"I had to fight hard to ensure that the new Chaumont hospital remained in the heart of the city. (...) Imagine, for business, what the disappearance of a hospital in the heart of the city could mean!" she said.

"Shoe boxes"

But competition from peripheral commercial areas, increasingly criticized for their aesthetic, ecological and economic impact, remains a thorn in the side of elected officials.

"We cannot think of city centres without thinking of the outskirts with them", said Frédéric Chéreau, PS mayor of Douai (North, 40.000 inhabitants), criticising the proliferation of large commercial spaces on the outskirts, which he compares to "shoe boxes" because of their shape.

"At the beginning, when we were the owners, we sold the first plots, we controlled who we sold them to. Now, it's a secondary market, we no longer control anything at all," he lamented, believing that he did not have the legal means to limit their expansion.

"Four housing units created on the outskirts create a commercial vacancy. And the vacancy will always be in the city centre," he noted.

Another lever put forward by elected officials: supporting the traders themselves in new ways of consuming. Online presence, incentives to review their opening hours, etc.

"Consumption patterns are changing, city centres and businesses need to adapt to this change," said Dominique Consille, director of the Action Coeur de Ville and Petites Villes de demain programmes.