Changes in our high street

Researchers claim that nearly half of the UK’s towns are “clones”, with the same shops making high streets indistinguishable from others round the country.

The survey ‘Clone Town Britain’ from the new economics foundation) shows how real, local shops have been replaced by waves of identikit chain stores that seem to spread like an economic virus. High streets up and down the country are virtually the same and any local identities have been lost or forced to close down. This has enforced many people to shop in different ways, often determined by a small and more dominating set of retailers.

Carpet bombing

The Wal-Mart policy of out-of-town developments and ‘stack-’em-high sell-’em cheap’ retail is the economic equivalent of  carpet-bombing the local economy.

According to one US study, “In the 10 years after Wal-Mart moved into Iowa, the state lost over 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building suppliers, 161 variety stores, and 158 women’s clothing stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drug stores and 111 children’s clothing stores.” Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world,  reporting a net income of $13.6 billion in 2009.

Influencing our choices

Supermarkets are eyeing the independent newsagent sector through moving into the smaller ‘Local’, ‘Metro’ and ‘Express’ formats.

Whereas independent local newsagents typically carry a massive range of magazine titles, the supermarkets concentrate on only the top titles with the biggest turnover to maximise profit. The same is true for the sale of CDs and DVDs. Not only do they reduce the range of specialist shops
available in these sectors, they also reduce the choice of goods readily available.

Losing reading diversity

Back in 2001, the British Booksellers’ Association reported that, up against the big chains, more than one in ten of Britain’s independent bookshops had folded in the previous five years alone. Independent
bookstores spurs publishers to produce a diversity of literature and to take risks with authors who are of less commercial but greater critical appeal.  

By 2009, Borders the bookshop chain, which also owned Books Etc, closed its 45 stores. It had suffered from increased competition from online retailers and supermarkets. Currently, Waterstone’s is the only high street book seller.

Defense de ‘la Londonisation’

The French term for the expansion of identical chain stores is ‘la Londonization’. Around half of the 71,000 shops in Paris are to have restrictions placed on them to prevent inappropriate change of use when the shopkeeper either sells up or retires.

This means that a small food shop would have to remain a food shop, and it would prevent, for example, a string of mobile phone chain shops replacing butchers, bakers or greengrocers.

The 20-year plan is aimed at maintaining the diverse food culture at the heart of Paris’s vibrant street life.

Keeping communities alive

The ‘Keep Louisville weird’ campaign, which has grown out of the American Midwest, encourages shopping in local stores. Studies have shown that for every $100 spent at a chain, $15 remains in the
community while $45 remains when spent with home town businesses.

Belfast, in Maine, banned stores above 75,000 square feet in size. Others chose limits of 36,000 sq ft. Limits can apply to an entire city or a neighbourhood. A ban on new stores larger than 4,000 sq ft in
certain neighbourhoods applies in San Francisco.