Soaring rents have seen London’s New Bond Street rise to become the world’s third most expensive retail street, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield. The annual Main Streets Across The Worldreport, now in its 29th edition, tracks 451 of the top retail streets around the globe and ranks the most expensive in 68 countries by prime rental value using proprietary data.

Trading Up: Dining, Leisure, Amenities, and the New Shopping Centreis the second report from the ULI Retail and Entertainment Council to look at the role that food and beverage (F&B) and leisure have in supporting shopping centers as they adapt to retail sales moving online. This year, the research extends that topic to consider how the addition of community amenities is also emerging among shopping center owners.

Retail is the pulse of any vibrant urban environment, including downtown Los Angeles (DTLA). Just ask Avison Young’s Derrick Moore, who has brokered some 400 DTLA retail leasing deals in the last few years.

Sales per square foot at all but a few public retailers have declined to an average of $325 ($3,498 per sq m), down from nearly $375 ($4,036 per sq m) in the early 2000s, according to research by CoStar. But while e-commerce has been disruptive to traditional retailers, several companies, including Apple, Tiffany, and lululemon, have managed to increase sales.

The LifeHub@Kunshan complex, just a brief train ride from Shanghai, integrates workforce housing, shopping, entertainment, e-commerce—and local culture.

There was a time before Prohibition when St. Louis had more than 40 breweries. By the 1980s, however, that number had dwindled to just two. Today, experts speaking at a ULI panel said St. Louis’s smaller brewery scene is again thriving, with 50 separate breweries operating locally.

Commercialized marijuana is big business and is expanding as a new asset class at an astronomical rate, according to a ULI Spring Meeting panel of industry investors, operators, and legal experts on the state of the cannabis business and real estate opportunities being created in the sector. Twenty-eight states have legalized the sale of medical marijuana, and eight states plus the District of Columbia allow recreational marijuana to some degree.

Contrary to some predictions, e-commerce has not made brick-and-mortar retail a thing of the past. Instead, as attendees at a ULI Spring Meeting session learned, shopping and dining are making critical contributions to activating urban spaces and helping shopping centers continuously evolve.

According to JLL’s 2017 Banking Outlook, increased use of mobile banking could decrease the need for traditional bank branches by 20 percent in the next five years, although some underserved markets are still seeing new construction.

A recent ULI Northwest event featured presentations and panel discussion on what it will take to bring the next generation of shoppers into retail locations. Starbucks and Nordstrom executives presented insights on how their businesses are evolving.