Shopping in slippers

Property developers sometimes decide to put homes and shopping centres in one building. Most of these projects are in the largest conurbations, such as Warsaw and the TriCity, where every unoccupied bit of land must be put to good use  The time when shopping was mostly done in small shops and street markets is now long gone. Housing estate retail gradually lost its former importance in the 1990s, when the first large-scale outlets and shopping malls appeared on the scene. But as the residential and retail markets matured, so people began to appreciate the convenience of local shops where they do not have to stand in long queues to buy one loaf of bread. Many residential developers decided to meet customer expectations halfway, ushering in an era of housing developments in which the lower storeys were set aside for local services. Some even went a step further and decided to situate small shopping centres in housing estates, where not only the essential provisions and basic services a