Urban Entertainment Centers -
Difficulties and Chances for Urban Development

by: Ingo Zasada

Index

1 Abstract 3

2 Introduction  4

3 Entertainment Market Changes  5

3.1 Determinants of the Leisure Behaviour 5
3.2 Market Determinants  7

4 Types of Leisure Time Facilities  9

5 Urban Entertainment Center 11

5.1 Historical Development and present Appearances  11
5.2 Types of Urban Entertainment Center  12
5.3 Externalities  14
5.4 Planning Opportunities  17

6 Conclusion 20

7 Bibliography  21
 

1 Abstract

This term paper is attending to the relative new appearance of the Urban Entertainment Center as a development of the entertainment market. Therefore the spatial and economical externalities of one of the stepchildren of the urban planning should be examined. To show the economic backgrounds the market developments will be described from the demand and support side. How do societal, technological and time changing factors or processes like concentration, globalisation and privatisation determine the development of the entertainment market? According to the changed demands, the market has produced constantly new forms of leisure time facilities. But only a certain number of types like musical theatres or leisure parks has a spatial importance because of its amount and size.

But the main focus keeps on Urban Entertainment Center as the new generation of those facilities. A short introduction into the history and the main appearances should help to define this almost inflationary used term. Emphasising the differences concerning the major components and the location the influence of UECs to processes like suburbanisation will be discussed. The core of this work is concentrating the externalities within the urban development in the fields of the city structure, local economy as well as traffic issues and how planners and politicians could handle the phenomenon of Urban Entertainment Center.

2 Introduction

If we have a look around urban areas in the developed world today, we could notice a new phenomenon in the urban development - concentration in all kinds of function. This development is especially recognizable in the retail trade. But nowadays these processes encroach onto another segment, to the leisure industry. The whole western world is gripped by a wave of new kinds of entertainment facilities. First used as a revitalisation tool in declined areas like harbours or old industrial sites, these kinds of entertainment facilities could be found in non-integrated locations like in the suburban sprawl as well as in inner city areas.

Especially the so-called Urban Entertainment Centers have been developed everywhere with appearances like theme parks, sport arenas, indoor leisure sites, center parcs, multiplex cinemas or musical theatres. These centres, often dedicated to a special theme, combine different leisure functions with retail trade and entertainment. Because of their huge size, their growing number and their needful catchment area their spatial impacts are immense. So it is necessary for planners and politicians to think about connected issues like the role within the city structure, traffic and economic impacts to existing structures of retail trade and leisure functions. To understand this development the market engine behind it should be described. In which way is the whole sector changed; influenced by global processes, mass production of culture and so on? Is the production of culture also on the way to be transformed from a public to a private produced good? But how could planners or politicians locally react to this development? Are they prepared for negotiation with international operating developers and with the global players of the entertainment industry? Or is it possible to use these new kinds of facilities as a useful measure in the urban development?

3 Entertainment Market Changes

3.1 Determinants of the Leisure Behaviour Working Time and Leisure Time

Leisure time is supposed to be the remaining time for activities, which are not related to work and subsistence like eating and sleeping. Now when we have a closer look to the relation of working time and leisure time in their historical development and the present situation we recognise a decline of working time in favour of an expansion of leisure time in wide parts if not in all in the developed world. Since the industrial revolution the number of working hours decreased in the U.S. and in Europe. This development lasts with an increasing pace into the present time with an small exception of the U.S. When the average German worker had to work 2,000 hours in 1970, today she or he works approximately only 1,600 hours. Simultaneously the time spent for leisure activities has expanded. The estimated apportionment of leisure hours per day increased in the U.S. from 7.2 in 1970 to 9.5 in 2000.¹

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1 cf. Vogel, H. L.: Entertainment industry economics – a guide for financial analysis, 5th edition. Cambridge, 2001, p. 5 ff.