Urban planners have to develop a planning doctrine (Faludi and Van der Valk 1990). This concept stands for a body of thoughts concerning (a) spatial arrangements within an area, (b) the development of that area; and (c) the way both should be handled. To be successful, they need a planning community (planners, top officials and sub-national establishments for political support) that nurtures it. The planners of the Amsterdam General Extension Plan (1935) developed a doctrine that covers three levels of functions and activities: (1) Amsterdam is a regional centre, a closed functional system, an orthogenetic city. (2) a monocentric urban form and (3) homogeneous neighbourhood communities around a common neighbourhood centre (church, school, medical services, shops). Since the early 1970s Amsterdam has become (1) an international centre, a heterogenetic city, part of a network city system, (2) has developed into a polycentric urban region, and (3) has been acquiring ethnically mixed quarters, divided communities losing their basic function as common neighbourhood centres and even as `control areas' or `domains' (Hägerstrand 1970). So in Amsterdam the planning-doctrine was not particularly successful.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/gejo/1997/00000043...

3.20 However, combined with the floorspace patterns on convenience goods, we have concluded that these statistics show beyond doubt that Scotland's urban areas are now populated by a mix of different retail locations from town centres to out-of-centre shopping malls, retail parks, district centres, and superstore based developments. Indeed, some of the superstore evidence we have used for the study suggests that a number of foodstores which were processed through the planning system as "out-of-centre" are now considered by the Institute of Grocery Distribution to be "neighbourhood centres" by reason of their integration with other local facilities and surrounding population catchments.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/01/18825/32301

If you don't like neighbourhood, district may also be a possibility

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Note added at 5 hrs (2008-04-01 10:37:09 GMT)
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A subcentro urbano is NOT a shopping centre. Please see the following, taken from an interview with Roberto Eibenschutz Hartman, secretario de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda del gobierno de la ciudad de México:

Al oriente de la ciudad trabajamos también en el proyecto Cabeza de Juárez, un excorralón colosal que está sobre la calzada Ignacio Zaragoza al que vamos a convertir en un ***subcentro urbano con industria, comercio, vivienda, servicios y equipamiento*** con el fin de impedir desplazamientos innecesarios al centro de la urbe.
http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/2268/roberto29.html