STREET WITHERING

Due to Allied Forces bombing of Szczecin in  World War II, nearly the whole old town and most of 19th and 20th century housing were destroyed. After the war, the part of ‘the heart of the city’, or rather its ‘living room’, was taken by the longest street – Wojska Polskiego Avenue, especially by the part in the centre of Szczecin. Lots of luxury boutiques were located there. Despite the communist period, the appearance of the street was taken care of. At some point most of shop windows were replaced. The identical, modern for that time, aluminum shop windows with vast glazing were installed. Nowadays this street is withering. Huge amount of shops and other services are closed. The rebuilding of the old town with its plaza does not have much impact on this process. Szczecin’s plaza does not act as a living room of the city as much as it should be. The cause of this issue is the location of a few big shopping malls in the center of the city. They ‘vacuumed’ many of the services from streets. In the paper, by example of Szczecin, the fatal impact of locating shopping malls on traditional services system in the city centre will be shown.