This is an interesting question. China doesn't appear to have such strict regulations on big boxes. Large shopping malls are popping up almost everywhere in big Chinese cities. I don't think it's a good idea for urban planning to try to limit the development of big boxes.  It's reasonable to plan their locations and density etc., but not their number.  Let the market determine their number and let planning to determine their feasible locations.

Malls have tremendous advantages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5141996_Percentage_Leases_and_the_Advantages_of_Regional_Malls

Article Percentage Leases and the Advantages of Regional Malls

I think it is good that we have e.g. in Germany regulations! Municipalities of Cities make retail concepts in which they try to analyse demands and offers. They define central supply areas where nearly everthing is possible and other areas where the quantity is limited.

Concerning regional malls: if we want to safe vibrant inner city centers we should limit them.

Big Box stores, and their impacts on retail location patterns, and especially on travel patterns, have been controversial in the Toronto region, and this has generated some excellent research. For example:

Jones, K. G. and M. J. Doucet (2003). 'The big box, the flagship, and beyond: impacts and trends in the Greater Toronto Area.' Canadian Geographer 45(4): 494-512.

Buliung, R. and T. Hernandez (2009). Places to Shop and Places to Grow: Power Retail, Consumer Travel Behavior, and Urban Growth Management in the Greater Toronto Area. T. Coombes. Toronto, Neptis Foundation.

http://www.neptis.org/publications/places-shop-and-places-grow

You may be interested in this article as well which is also drawn from the Canadian context:

Webber, S. & Hernandez, T. (2016) Big box battles: the Ontario Municipal Board and large-format retail land-use planning conflicts in the Greater Toronto Area. International Planning Studies 21(2): 117-131.

Caro Luca,

You might be interested by this research about Lausanne by Marta Alonso-Provencio and Antonio Da Cunha:

http://rge.revues.org/5070

Best regards

d.

Dear Luca, 

In Portugal, the legislation considers not the format but the dimension of the development and the characteristics of the promoter. If interested in the evolution of the portuguese legislation see the following paper:

Guimarães, P. (2016), Controlling Retail Development between

Restrictiveness and Innovation. Insights from Portugal, Journal of Settlements and Spatial Planning, vol.7 (1): 35-43

http://dx.medra.org/10.19188/04JSSP012016

Best wishes,

Pedro

Dear Luca,

A most intriguing question.  Where we have had the most penetration of the big box retailers in the US, we are seeing a trend of their gradual disappearance as they are displaced by eCommerce.  We are now faced by the prospect of cities having to deal with large abandoned stores for which no one has any idea what to do with them that makes commercial sense.  

This probably means that where we have big box stores competing for urban space, this is going to be transitory situation that will leave multiple problems down the road.  While it would be unwise to legislate them out of existence before they have filled their current market demand, perhaps we could think of making the permit contingent on acceptable architectural plans for alternative uses if and when the unit is no longer economically viable.