It has four stores there now (in aggregate the best producers per square foot in the chain) and is only planning to open one more in 2011.

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Harvard Square, for instance, where chain stores like The Gap are thriving and rents climbing, may have lost much of its distinctiveness but remains as vibrant as ever.

ECONOMIST: Rent control

Its breezy cosmopolitan capital, Papeete, sits on Tahiti's northeastern tip and is the gateway to a captivating world of indigenous culture that infuses a chain of islands spread across 5 million square kilometres of sparkling ocean between Australia and South America.

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Undaunted, Green set his sights on British Home Stores, the country's fifth-largest retail chain: 156 outlets with 4.4 million square feet of space stocked with everything from housewares to bridesmaids' dresses.

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The coffee chain's Passbook functionality looks to be quite similar to its partnership with Square, which will be the go-to mobile payments option for non-iOS customers when it launches this fall.

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Launched in 2010, Square now has more than 400 employees and has been adopted by Starbucks to help the coffee chain process sales transactions.

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