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The COVID-19 pandemic has posed major challenges not only to society but also to business, including the retail sector in particular. Although online retailers benefited from lockdowns and the closure of local stores, brick-and-mortar retailers were cut off from their main source of income overnight. The latter has been undergoing structural change for decades and has recently had to face new challenges as a result of extensive social and economic digitalization. Our article deals with the question of the extent to which retailers felt compelled to undertake increased digitization as a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdowns. We consider different online strategies, ranging from complete inactivity to a comprehensive online strategy (online shops, supported by social media activity). In order to visualize the development over the last years as well as over three COVID-19 lockdowns, the study presents a comparison of two survey dates (2017/2018 and 2021) based on four medium-sized towns in North Rhine-Westphalia (Baesweiler, Düren, Eschweiler, Heinsberg). It can be seen that the digitalization process is progressing in general, although the extent of digital activities is strongly dependent on the respective form of organization. In addition, differences can also be seen with regard to the size of the medium-sized towns.

Music clubs are regarded as important experimental spaces for popular music, as places of informal exchange for local music scenes, and as hubs of scene-based value creation processes of urban pop culture. Their (socio-)spatial strategies and manifestations tend to point toward a culture-oriented self-understanding, as well as toward alternative, lived spaces of local night economies rooted in their location. This article looks at (socio-)spatial exchange processes of music clubs, local music scenes, city and music industries, and explores the urban-spatial and cultural implications associated with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for these in the context of the urban music ecosystem. Although the economic consequences seem obvious, of particular interest here are the attributions of music clubs to the city, the spatial value of live music and cultural heritage, and the question of the upgrading of clubs and live venues in terms of building and planning law during the lockdown in spring 2021.

To provide the Circular Economy with better opportunities for integration into city-regional strategies, linkages with broader objectives of resilience are solicited. The concepts of Urban and Regional Resilience are also increasingly discussed in Germany, as an approach to future viability. They are expected to bolster the robustness, adaptability, and recovery capabilities of cities and regions in the face of multiple crises, connected to objectives of sustainable development. This article, on the one hand, shows in which respects a combined view of urban-regional resilience establishes a suitable framework for effectively embedding systemic approaches of the Circular Economy into city-regional contexts. On the other hand, it explains how, in turn, the resilient cushioning against environment- and economy-related risks can be more successful if elements of the Circular Economy are integrated. After conceptual considerations of the synergistic interdependencies of these process fields, the example of the City of Aachen serves to illustrate the appropriate combination of 'Circular City' and resilience-related objectives. It elucidates how important a focus on innovation is for such strategic approaches. Finally, recommendations are made for designing a resilient-circular urban economy.

As spaces of the music economy, rehearsal spaces have received little attention in economic-geographical research or in infrastructural support for the production of culture in cities. However, many cities are experiencing a structural shortage of appropriate artistic work and rehearsal spaces owing to competition with intensified housing and office construction in current urban development processes. In particular, the low-cost noise emission-intensive niches in former industrial and commercial buildings are increasingly disappearing. The article discusses rehearsal spaces as critical infrastructures of musical production and identifies various aspects of infrastructural support in cities. The basis of the article is a literature review and secondary analysis of recent surveys and inquiries on rehearsal space needs among Berlin's musicians from 2014 and 2021 by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Musicboard, as well as various planning initiatives and participation processes for artistic workspaces in Berlin. It becomes clear that the availability, affordability, and appropriateness of rehearsal spaces for musicians are among the central challenges and that cities have hardly developed any answers to the growing space crisis for artistic work and rehearsal spaces.