Why is the "death of the town center" a problem?

[Munter]

I pondered this a few days ago. And a poster on another thread said:

somebody said:

They like to blame "big out of town stores" for the decline but that's IMO rubbish. People leave town centres due to inadequate parking and excessive parking charges. Shops leave because the business rates are ridiculously high and people won't come if they can't park or are overcharged for parking.

So people keep banging in on about shops not being in town centers. But there are no shops there because there are not enough people going there to buy stuff. If there are no people there, why MUST we have shops there?

Why can't we accept people now shop online and in the big out of center retail places that they prefer?

[Munter]

thinfourth2 said:

mrmr96 said:

Because small local shops tend to be run by small local shop keepers who in turn spend money locally and employ local people. They also pay local tax (business rates) and also corporation tax in the UK.

Fine in principle but when did you last see a small locally owned shop in a town centre

Most town centres are identical to out of town retail parks just with worse parking

And the large chains also employ local people in their out of town center stores. It's just relocating the work available to somewhere people want to be.

[Munter]

mrmr96 said:

It's interesting from a "game theory" perspective too. Because I'm sure you see that if everyone does what you're suggesting then there will be no shops and it will cease to be possible to do. So you need some people to keep supporting the shops so that you can view there and then buy online. However it could be argued that if everyone were acting in their personal best interests only, then they'd all go for the lower cost option of buying online but then the 'system' for viewing in shops falls down.

Retailers are aware that this happens. So I think they would put some or all of the cost of running the store down as advertisement to drive the online buyers to their site. And/or price match online, and in store, so you may as well buy it while you have your hands on it, unless there is a queue at the checkout, in which case a QR code on the shelf/item should allow you to "1 click" order.

[Munter]

bhstewie said:

I don't prefer it, I don't have a choice if you're talking about bricks and mortar shops.

I live in a small city. If I want a cup of coffee, an eyetest, or to buy a house I can walk into town and take my pick from around a dozen of each and it is not a large town.

If I want to buy a pair of trousers I have Burtons and that's it. If I want to buy a pair of shoes I have one shoe shop and that is it.

So if you were me and you needed a pair of trousers or shoes, when you finished work would you drive into town, pay a quid to park even if it's only for 10 minutes, and go look around Burtons, or would you stop at the out of town retail park that's 10 seconds off the main road, and has Next, M&S, Blacks and god knows what else?

That's bricks and mortar, that's before you even begin to get in the fact that the boots that are £140 in the local shoe shop can be had for £80 online - in fact Parcelforce should be delivering them today.

I'm missing something here. You say you don't prefer "out of town" and then go on to explain how you prefer out of town due to it's greater selection of shops, easy access and free parking, and order online as a preference because it's cheaper.

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

Precisely - and it's not just the French, you find the same in just about any given European country.

I'm finding something increasingly antisocial about the British and I do wonder whether it's internet shopping that's doing it (per capita we do more of it than anyone, even the Americans). On here I read no end of narcissistic gittishness about avoiding having to mix with 'the plebs' or talk to anyone or have to have a face-to-face conversation about anything.

I live in an internet dead-zone and I love it. I hate the experience of internet shopping (I don't trust putting by bank details on a website for starters), I don't buy anything on the internet unless there really is no choice, and I do as much as I can face-to-face in the high street as possible.

And I don't care if it costs me a tiny bit more. Why? Because I'd rather keep people in work and live somewhere that's bustling and thriving than spend the same amount of extra money on unemployment benefits while my town turns into an empty, intimidating place full of boarded-up shops and rudderless unemployed people with nothing to do while those people who do manage to cling to work hole themselves and their families up in their houses communicating only via screens. The whole thing is starting to resemble a dystopian nightmare.

Also, retail is the main sector for mass working-class employment these days. Having turned our manufacturing sector into a slimmed-down, automated, specialised thing, we moved the bulk of that unskilled/semi-skilled population into retail. Now it seems the isolationist, computer-worshipping middle-class are busy making the physical retail sector redundant, while also reading and not paying for their newspaper online as well so the local kids can't even get paper rounds.

WHAT ARE PEOPLE GOING TO DO?

Because don't come crying to me if we end up with repeat performances of last summer's riots again and again and again, spreading further every year as more and more people chase fewer and fewer jobs and entire families (and in some cases communities) end up unable to find work.

We can't all be goateed company directors or 'ontrapranuurs'((c) every shiny-suited delusionist on Dragon's Den), nor can we access the cash or the nous to 'just start your own business' as is so often blithely spouted on here. A huge proportion of the population needs to work for someone, and we are talking millions. You can't just write them off or tell them to do something else totally theoretical. You have to create opportunities on a mass scale.

Personally I'd be in favour of some kind of internet transaction tax to pay for the damage that the wrecking-ball of the internet is wreaking on the economy. There are some US states that do this already.

Something has to be done, because otherwise we'll end up relentlessly pursuing a business model in which profits are continually maximised for a dwindling few at the expense of more and more essentially redundant masses in the name of 'efficiency'. Otherwise you're looking at revolution.

No doubt some of the chalkstripes on here, in the darker recesses of their minds, would advocate swatting the working class into the gutter. After all, it's their fault for not 'adapting'.

I completely disagree. What's the point of an economy - or a world for that matter - that seems more bothered about the wellbeing and livelihood of machines than it is of people? What is the world for exactly - the home of the human race, or a giant footstool for the upper middle class?

Sorry twincam but everything you say there just says "Failing education system for many years" to me.

High street retail jobs should not be some propping up the economy. Plus the jobs are still there just located off the highstreet in a retail park.

I don't want to deal with the people in shops because most of the time it's hard work. If you can actually under stand what they say, you don't want the information anyway. I don't go shopping for a chat about my pet insurance when trying to pay.

Then there are the other customers, rude, thick and generally get in the way of what should be a simple, find, buy, leave process....shudder. Perhaps if the education system was better I'd prefer to be around these people and they'd have some concept of being in the fking way of everybody, and step aside while the figure out what that fluid is coming from their mouth that they left open.

Basically twincam you seem to be arguing for a communist state where people are employed for the sake of it in positions defined by old concepts rather than educated to enable them to work in new positions opened up by new technology.

Somebody has to keep the internet shop working and maintained, the stock has to be picked, and someone has to deliver it. Why would you destroy those jobs to employ someone in a shop where the customer doesn't want to be?

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

there will always be large numbers of people who just aren't going to end up going to university, building or repairing things or running a business. These people will always need to work for someone, and if they can't, they will be a burden that you end up paying for.

But why should those people be working in a shop, over a warehouse, or delivering goods, or another role created by whatever new technology comes up with. Why MUST we have them in a shop on the high street? Employed yes. In a shop on a high street...well only if there are customers wanting to use the shop, and they want to work there over somewhere else.

Full employment is an impossibility in any society unless people are forced to take jobs and or doing jobs they are not qualified for.

In your world, we'd be still employing people as chimney sweeps on the same scale as before. Even though there are no fires in most houses. Just to ensure full employment. It's madness.

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

There you've just come across as an antisocial, vindictive ahole full of generalised opinions. I've worked in shops before now, and as I like to shop physically I'm one of those 'other customers'. According to you, back when I was a teenager working in Woolworths and BHS I was hard work and you couldn't understand what I said. Nowadays, because I shop in high street shops I'm rude, thick and get in your way.

You're bloody lucky I'm sociable and polite, really.

I would discuss each individual on the highstreet, but I'm not sure we have the time or the space on the internet to do so. So I'm somewhat forced to generalise. And in general most people shopping in our town center are pretty dim. For example they will stop in doorways, and other pinch points and swear at you if you ask them to step aside a little. They swear at their kids for misbehaving, and at their partners for not caring. They will barge to the front of queues or fail to see free tills when at the front of a queue. Some people may be exceptions to that. But most...not in my experience.

And sorry if you like the person on the till I went to the other day, have to have a 2nd employee translate for you as you converse with customers. Making everything take twice as long as it needed to and making the whole experience excruciatingly embarrassing. But perhaps choose a more appropriate career. Like maintaining a websites infrastructure, or warehouse picking, or deliveries.... As a shopper you never know when you will get that person on a till, or ask for their help with something. But you can be sure the internet will not have the same problem.

Basically shopping is hell. How anybody enjoys that process of abuse, discomfort, embarrassment, frustration, and obstruction is totally beyond me. I'd genuinely sooner have norovirus and spend the time in bed / in the toilet again, than go shopping. It really is horrible. It wouldn't have to be. If people in general were polite, thought about others also trying to shop, and were able to communicate effectively. It wouldn't be so bad. Never happens though does it.

Given all that I'm still not against successful high streets. But there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason a town MUST have one, over an out of centre retail setup.

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

Please explain to me how the internet and new technology has created more working-class jobs than it has destroyed.

Working class jobs. Umm. How is any job not done by someone who works and as such is working class?

The problem here appears to be with you classifying the jobs.

Jobs, are to me. Jobs. They are done by people in exchange for cash. HM Gov and industry, are charged with ensuring the population is educated to a level sufficient to do those jobs created.

Why MUST working class jobs be in shops on the highstreet?

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

I didn't say they had, I just asked you to explain how the internet and new technology has created more working-class jobs than it has destroyed.

And I'm trying to keep it on topic. Why must those jobs be on the high street, and not in an out of center retail location? Because that's the question I'm asking with the thread.

If you insist on asking silly questions have this for your collection. How many "working class" jobs has internet shopping removed?
And How many "middle class" jobs should be removed to create the "working class" jobs?

Keep in mind internet shopping is basically employing everybody at Yodel for a start. I doubt royal mail would exist without it either.

Your position is utter madness. We should not change the high street for fear of removing some "working class" jobs, which may not be removed, but may just be relocated, we don't really know, but we should not do it.

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

Munter said:

Twincam16 said:

I didn't say they had, I just asked you to explain how the internet and new technology has created more working-class jobs than it has destroyed.

And I'm trying to keep it on topic. Why must those jobs be on the high street, and not in an out of center retail location? Because that's the question I'm asking with the thread.

If you insist on asking silly questions have this for your collection. How many "working class" jobs has internet shopping removed?
And How many "middle class" jobs should be removed to create the "working class" jobs?

Keep in mind internet shopping is basically employing everybody at Yodel for a start. I doubt royal mail would exist without it either.

Your position is utter madness. We should not change the high street for fear of removing some "working class" jobs, which may not be removed, but may just be relocated, we don't really know, but we should not do it.

So your real answer is 'I don't know'.

I'm just thinking about the collapse of Clintons Cards. Largely the fault of Moonpig and Funky Pigoen.

Clintons employed about 5000 people around the country.

Moonpig employs six, and is offshored in Jersey.

Demand for the products was the same, but 'efficiency' meant that 5000 people mainly on low incomes had to lose their jobs while six incredibly rich people - who'd taken tax-dodging measures to make themselves even more rich - kept theirs.

If this kind of business model is extrapolated for every struggling form of physical retail business, you end up with an awful lot of people out of work and much less money circulating around the economy. With your general hatred of the human race and broad praise of greed, you seem all too willing to urge this process.

So, when all those industries that employed 5000 people are usurped by those employing six (and similar stories elsewhere for just about every business involving internet shopping), what are the majority going to do?

No my answer is: You don't know.

Clintons didn't fail because of Moonpig and Funky Pidgin.

It failed because it was mismanaged, had no on-line presence, and sold overpriced tat from shops on empty high streets in a time of austerity. It would have failed without internet shopping. It's a luxury people can live without.

[Munter]

worsy said:

I have to agree with Twincam here, it appears many of you are sleep walking into a world you won't like. I'd advocate developing a social conscience.

Hows that going to work then?

You are going to have the government open shops in town centres and allocate people to work in them?

Shutdown online shopping to stifle one form of commerce for another?

What other innovations should we remove from society in order to generate jobs?

A social conscience is get a job work hard at it so your employer is more profitable and can employ more people and they can have jobs. Not stop shopping at John Lewis in the retail park and go to M&S on the high street.

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

This is what I'd suggest (although Munter probably thinks it's something that Trotsky would advocate).

Oh do grow up. Removing a tax and letting enterprise get on with the job is just the sort of thing I'd be all for as you well know from earlier posts.

Forcing enterprise onto the highstreet over other options I would not support.

[Munter]

worsy said:

I didn't suggest that, and am certainly not getting all leftie suggesting we should create jobs for the sake of it. What I would regret is the complete death of the high street. Where possible I prefer to support the local shops, and that is equally the local WHSmith or the independent.

Although I broadly agree with what Twincam states, I'm much more selfish that that. I want my local town to be full of people shopping, they pay local taxes, pump more money into the local economy. Taxes pay for the local litter pickers, which makes the town look nice, and I like living somewhere that is nice.

But why the town center high street. Why not a bustling out of centre retail park/mall full of people pumping money into the employees pockets. With shelter from the elements, plentiful parking, and properly maintained surfaces, where people will split from their cash easier as they are comfortable in the place.

It's back to the start of the thread. Why the high street and not out of town. What is so good about having shops in that specific location over a more convenient one?

[Munter]

youngsyr said:

To be fair, it's not exactly convenient driving into Lakeside or Bluewater on a Saturday or Sunday, despite the free parking.

Might be because of the free parking...hey they should charge for it! Cut down the number of cars using it. It's the only way that makes sense.....

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

and due to a sociopath-driven boom in internet shopping, are finding that most basic of jobs - one in a shop - harder to come by.

I think you'll find it's the global economic downturn/crisis created by people and countries living well beyond their means (by buying tat from Clintons for a start), that's making jobs hard to find. Not internet shopping.

[Munter]

Twincam16 said:

The only advantage out-of-town malls have over a town centre is the free parking.

Councils could very easily rectify that, plus rents and rates. Perhaps a petition could be lodged at Downing Street to look into it?

I prefer to shop in my local town centre because it has way more variety than my local out-of-town complex could ever hope to. Admittedly, I live in a village and the Tesco there is useful for food, but for absolutely anything else it's a pale imitation of what my nearest town centres (Peterborough or Cambridge) can offer.

Music and film? Town centres have two HMVs and a Fopp. Tesco has the latest top-40 chart of both and that's it.

Clothes? Town centres have whatever you could ask for. Tesco has Tesco own-brand (plus a few designer-outlet places but nothing particularly individual or interesting).

Books? Within easy reach of me are a few branches of Waterstones and an excellent independent place who'll order things in free called Walkers. Tesco has the bestseller chart and that's it. There's a WH Smith but they'll only sell what's popular, they won't get things in for you.

Electronics? Where do I start? Cambridge is almost the centre of the UK universe for this sort of thing. Richer Sounds are based there for a start. Tesco has own-brand Technika tat. Brilliant. There was a Comet in the out-of-town but it's closed down.

Interesting quirky little gifts? Furniture? Art? Well, if I want my house to look like a Barratt show-home I suppose I could buy all these things from Tesco. I'd far rather go to Cambridge or Stamford and stumble across interesting things.

So, the out-of-town place for the weekly food shop, yes, but with the exception of that it has absolutely nothing I want whatsoever.

I'm not talking about an isolated tesco though am I. Apparently there are these other places with many shops called retail parks and shopping malls.

Clearly you're not normal as you prefer plodding about in shops of a weekend hoping to bump randomly into something you want.

Normally people know what they want and go to the easiest place to get it.

[Munter]

Changedmyname said:

Yes I see your point, yet I grew up in the age before these computers and online shops, when we did go to the high street and shop, What I'm saying overall is these values have been lost due to the ease of this thing I'm typing on.

It's interesting that you relate the high street to some set of values from the past.

People didn't shop on the highstreet because they wanted to support local business or such like. It wasn't some moral decision based on a set of values. They shopped on the high street because that's where the most convenient shops were that had what they wanted.

The question of values can only be relevant where people have a choice. Which would make these "values" something some people have adopted recently. Not had forever.

[Munter]

Changedmyname said:

Munter said:

Changedmyname said:

Yes I see your point, yet I grew up in the age before these computers and online shops, when we did go to the high street and shop, What I'm saying overall is these values have been lost due to the ease of this thing I'm typing on.

It's interesting that you relate the high street to some set of values from the past.

People didn't shop on the highstreet because they wanted to support local business or such like. It wasn't some moral decision based on a set of values. They shopped on the high street because that's where the most convenient shops were that had what they wanted.

The question of values can only be relevant where people have a choice. Which would make these "values" something some people have adopted recently. Not had forever.

Yes but now you have the choices of OTS , when there where none you shopped locally as that's all there was...no choice.

Exactly. It wasn't a set of values that we should continue to protect somehow. It's always been convenience. And that has been maintained with the introduction of out of town shopping and the internet.

When you said "What I'm saying overall is these values have been lost". What values have been lost?

[Munter]

Changedmyname said:

Munter said:

Exactly. It wasn't a set of values that we should continue to protect somehow. It's always been convenience. And that has been maintained with the introduction of out of town shopping and the internet.

When you said "What I'm saying overall is these values have been lost". What values have been lost?

Okay you said it yourself "convenience"
I know most of my customers well ,what they want and when they want it and I will go out of my way to get it for them, Values.
If it wasn't convenient for me to do this and I didn't do it then my values have been lost.
I think it's proberly an age thing TBH.

Sorry I'm not sure we can count convenience as a value. And even if we did it's been maintain by the natural order of people generally doing what they think is most convenient.

You seem to be talking about good customer service. But that's a value the store holder has not the general population. And it appears is not something the population misses when shopping out of town. The internet is great at it, it's very good at suggesting things you might be interested in and telling you what is in stock and if it's not when they expect it to be/allowing preorders etc. If you exclude Yodel doing "deliveries" customer service has never been better.