I recently read REVO's The Forces Driving Retail and Leisure Places in 2034. (No digital versions are available, but you can buy yours by emailing kayley@revocommunity.org.) I saw that Vivienne King (of Impactful Places) has given her summary of it (see linked article), so here is my tuppence worth.

This report sets out three potential scenarios to show what the retail landscape could look like in 2034. It was an interesting read, with the three possible outlooks ranging from “Polarised Britain”, a future verging on the dystopian, with regular public disorder and vandalism, increased inequality in society, reduced support to address the causes of climate change, and hollowed-out town centres, to a more utopian “Green, Good, Smart Places” model. The third “Next Normal” scenario is considered most likely, and this sits somewhere between the other two extremes in most respects.

I am over-simplifying and there is loads more you could pick out, these being complex issues that can’t be looked at in isolation, but there are three strands common to these very different scenarios:

1. The impact of climate change – this is seen as inevitable in the three pictures, albeit the appetite of society and the ability of Government to address it varies markedly. 
2. The advance and impact of AI – most obviously benefiting the more positive scenarios, speeding up mundane processes and improving efficiency (and reducing costs, albeit with significant capital investment required), with a challenge of upskilling those people who would previously have undertaken more menial tasks.
3. Retail is going to change – for better or worse, in dystopia or utopia, retail in 2034 will not look like it does in 2025, with a blend of uses increasingly common, mixing residential and commercial, and being rooted in customer experience and well-being. 

As it always has done, and as the challenges of the last 5 years has shown it can do, retail needs to be ready to adapt and change, embracing collaboration and innovation, whatever the future actually holds.