In a regular theme, there is a big question in my mind: what is the future of main street? Sure, Brits call it the High Street, but the more we digitalise, the less we need physical structures. Whether it be stores and shops or offices and companies, we all need to recognise that the world is not what it was. We are working from home more and more – even though some bank bosses don’t appreciate that – and there is a knock-on effect.
It began with electronic and camera stores shutting down. Then came the collapse of record and media stores. Then we find big name retailers offering clothes and refrigerators shutting down. Nearly all retail has been decimated, with the end of the shopping mall.
and a decimation of the main street.
Following this trend, the pandemic forced us to stop commuting and few of us want to come back. We would rather work from home. So, does this mean we won’t be coming back to the office. Is it the end of the City?
This really hit home with me on a recent trip to the UK. Walking down main street Britain, the old thoroughfares are full of stores that are boarded up, shut down and closed; bank branches are disappearing faster than Max Verstappen; and big office is now decentralised office, where everyone can choose whether to be there or not.
It’s a very different world.
The thing is that if no one is working in the town, then there is no for offices; if no one goes to an office in the town, there is no need for cafes and restaurants in the town; if no one is shopping in town, there is no need for shops in the town; if no one is in town, there is no town needed.
I blog about this often and it really struck me when seeing retail stores and bank branches were shut down and no one had revived them. The town had become a ghost town.
But, on the other hand, people need people; people need interaction; we need to meet, talk, debate and think; we need each other.
So what would be the vision of the future main street?
Today, it is all about café culture, restaurants and wine bars. No shops, offices or malls needed? Tomorrow? Well, here’s a clue: main street will always be main street. Main street is the place where our human colonies gather and collide. It’s not going away.
How can this be? When we can all be digital with no need for a main street, why do we need one? Why would we have one?
Well, here’s a clue. Writing half a century ago, when shopping centres signalled the death of the main street, The New York Times reported that the success of main street is a combination of art, history and business. It’s not just about commercial transactions.
‘A profitable combination of art, history and business that has united entrepreneurs, esthetes and a public increasingly responsive to the meaning and pleasure of place.
‘In Paterson, Fair Streets Caliris Coffee Store grinds custom blends, and Millers Fruits and Vegetables offers “unwrapped tomatoes and apples and peaches with a leaf or two still on the stems.” Magazine Street, in the throes of a gentle boom, “retains its strangely Orleanean quality of subtropical decay. . . an almost atmospheric quality of benign decadence.” In Galveston, “the huge moving freighters against ornamental Victorian buildings just a block away create a romantic aura unique among American cities.”
‘No shopping center can make these statements. On Main Street, art and life have turned out to be the same thing.’
So, going back to that question: what is the future of the main street?
Well, it’s a matter of regeneration. As The New York Times article points out, the move from horse and buggy to automobiles led to the rise of shopping malls to replace main street … but main street survived by regenerating itself into a place to find artisan and boutique goods, as well as to meet, eat, socialise and relax in a far more amiable environment. That will never go away tbh. We will always need to meet, eat, socialise and relax in places with good atmospheres.
When we therefore predict the end of main street and everything becoming a ghost town thanks to digital, the prediction is as wrong as the one half a century ago of the shopping mall would kill the town. After all, try a get your haircut and nails done online or have a swim online rather than going to the fitness centre … it kindof doesn’t work
It is just change. It is all about change. The only constant is change. And survival is all about being the most adaptable to change.
The main street has pretty good at doing that for the last centuries, and it will continue to do that in the future. The need for the old retail stores may have gone; but the need for innovative boutique shops remains; the idea that you can get a Michelin meal at home is stupid and so restaurants will remain; the concept of everything being DIY is silly so hairdressers and salons will remain; and so the list goes on.
It’s just all about adapting to change and the things that will disappear will be those that are standard and undifferentiated.
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”, Mark Twain
For more on this, Thomas Frey wrote a great article recently on the vision of the future main street. It’s well worth a read. Equally, here’s a good article on the fight back against automation: the campaign “is not only against self-service tills, there’s no bank in the town, it’s just a hole in the wall. It’s the whole way society is leaning now”. In 2024, nearly 170,000 retail jobs were lost across the UK, a 42 per cent increase on 2023 and the highest annual figure since the Covid lockdowns of 2020.