Quality of Canadian urbanism

[Hali87]

Another related factor is the history of department stores in the Halifax area. Eaton's and Zellers each had historic downtown locations, but I don't think Hudson's Bay ever did. Gottingen Street had a few department stores and as mentioned Scotia Square had a Woolco. By the 90s there was no downtown department store though, and there still isn't.

West End Mall originally grew up around a Simpson's department store; by the 90s it had the main Bay location and a Sears, while Halifax Shopping Centre (across the street) had an Eaton's. Zellers anchored several malls as well, before the big shift toward power centres.

At this point I think there's just one Hudson's Bay store left (at Mic Mac in Dartmouth) and then a bunch of WalMarts scattered around the urban area. I don't think the Peninsula even has a Giant Tiger or anything of that scale. So that's another factor that's affected the trajectory of boutique storefront retail in and around Downtown Halifax.

Worth noting that until fairly recently it was common for people in Halifax to make trips to New Brunswick or Maine to access stores that we didn't have here. This started to turn around in the early 2000s but for a long time the retail options around Halifax felt pretty limited.