the high street: a stage for global

crisis or a workshop for

reconstruction?

in the beginning...

there was the agora

the Wen: the agora becomes the sink

the Garden City: escape from the Wen

the Exodus: clone towns and ghost

towns

‘There is a concern that the High Street shopping environment to

which society has grown accustomed... is changing and we are not sure whether we will like

either how it will change or what it will be changed to.’

John Dawson, 1988

for the first time ever, less than half our retail floorspace

is in town centres

48%

‘town centres first’ was only half right...

‘In the UK, the free-standing, car-based, food superstore is

now the hegemonic retail format.’

Hallsworth et al, 2010

the stage for global crisis #1: the end of

the renaissance?

‘The most recent period of investment (2004-2008) saw the

emergence of the private investor seeking high returns from assets

held for very short periods of time... This “flipping” of assets has

led to chronic under investment in some centres.’

British Council of Shopping Centres, 2010

the stage for global crisis #2: burning

and looting

Bristol, May 2011: the ‘Tesco riot’

Croydon, August 2011

#riotcleanup, August 2011

the stage for global crisis #3: economic

paradigm shift

1982: last time UK trade in goods showed a surplus

76%: proportion of groceries sold by the big four supermarkets

23,000: number of UK retail jobs lost, October 2010 to September 2011

80m: number of additional jobs needed worldwide to return to pre-recession

levels

is this sustainable?

Sources: BIS, 2010; British Retail Consortium; Kantar WorldPanel; ILO

four questions:

what future for ‘retail led regeneration’ when there’s no money to spend?

what future for resource-heavy goods in a resource-depleted world?

what future for buying when we’ve stopped making?

what future for place in cyberspace?

back to the agora: a workshop for

rethinking civics

from the Queen of Shops.... to a people’s republic?

back to the

agora: new

reasons to go into town

back to the agora: can

the markets work for

the people?

by the people, for the people

placemaking with dirty hands

setting the scene for the next act

four ways of thinking about getting the town centres we

want:

1 Footfall2 Satisfaction

3 Diversity4 Economic activity

credits

The pictures are all Creative Commons or non-copyright. Thanks especially to:

Slide 17: Stringberd

Slide 18: Peter Trimming

Slide 19: Liam Barrington-Bush

Slide 22: Zach Inglis

Slide 25: Daddiochap

Slide 28: Katy Wrathall

thank you

more from me...www.urbanpollinators.co.uk

my blog: Living with Rats

Twitter: @juliandobson