Retail change in the inner suburbs

Within the last six years two planned shopping centres have opened in Rathmines, an older residential area of Dublin. One — the Town Hall Centre — opened in 1978; the other, the Swan Centre, late last year. As a means of studying the changing nature of retailing in the district, two studies were undertaken during 1983 before the Swan Centre opened. This article reports on these two studies and also makes use of a subsequent questionnaire survey of shoppers after the Swan Centre had opened. The author shows that, contrary to popular belief, inner city suburbs have not necessarily been bypassed in terms of retail change.