Problem
When shops are too large, or controlled by absentee owners, they become plastic, bland, and abstract.
Solution
Do what you can to encourage the development of individually owned shops. Approve applications for business licenses only if the business is owned by those people who actually work and manage the store. Approve new commercial building permits only if the proposed structure includes many very very small rental spaces.
Related Patterns
… the Street Cafe (88) and Corner Grocery (89) and all the individual shops and stalls in Shopping Street (32) and Market of Many Shops (46) must be supported by an ordinance which guarantees that they will stay in local private hands, and not be owned by absentee landlords, or chain stores, or giant franchise operations.
Treat each individual shop as an identifiable unit of a larger Building Complex (95); make at least some part of the shop part of the sidewalk, so that people walk through the shop as they are going down the street - Opening to the Street (165) ; and build the inside of the shop with all the goods as open and available as possible - The Shape of Indoor Space (191), Thick Walls (197), Open Shelves (200).
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 432.