ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book suggests that Brussels already had a well-developed shopping landscape in the 1830s. Familiarity with the concept was also due to the fact that department store directors deployed spatial strategies that had been tried and tested on a smaller scale in other Brussels stores. The divergence between the fate of markets and halls in nineteenth-century Barcelona and Brussels was largely due to a difference in policy. The double standard in municipal policy also favored fixed shopkeepers. All sorts of – often socially inferior – street professionals were pushed out, although shopkeepers could use part of the street to do business. Peddlers were obliged to keep moving, even as the municipality allowed the Grands Magasins de la Bourse and the Grand Bazar to display goods on the sidewalk.
