Usefully, there are some great visionaries out there. Bill Grimsey is one, and he’s authored a stunning review of the High Street, encompassing:
- The realisation that we have too much retail space, and that is flawed – we need variety
- Move to using the High St as a community hub to be more inclusive of arts, education, business space and entertainment
- Embrace pervasive connectivity to make the High St space more connected
- Reduce the cost of being “on the High St” to broaden it’s appeal to organisations outside of traditional shops
His full report is nearly 60-pages long [PDF]. But worth a read, how the High Street looks in the next 20 years is dependent on what we do now.
By Martin Dower