If the environment in which we live serves as a reflection of who we are as a people, then the modern British high street suggests we are a people in the final stages of an illness so severe that it will soon rob us of the very life we cherish. Shops are boarded up and covered in graffiti, with homeless people camping in the doorways that used to serve as the gateways to our capitalist paradise. All that seems to be left on our high streets now is a frankly abhorrent combination of bookmakers, cashinos, barbers, coffee shops, vape shops, and one or two banks that are still holding out against the inevitability of their closure – Nationwide’s promise to keep all of its branches open until 2030 is admirable but shortsighted, since it will only make them look like complete hypocrites when they are forced to close them all in 2031.
I mean, how many Costa Coffees can we possibly need, and how on earth, when we’re apparently in the midst of an economic crisis, can so many people afford to spend £5.20 on an iced latte? The prevalence of Costa could be considered wryly amusing, but it is also a symbol of a deeper rot that quietly penetrates our culture, which is the erasure of individuality. I’m not sure what further proof you need of the undeniable victory of late-stage capitalism other than to consider that something as simple as buying a cup of coffee now looks identically soulless wherever you choose to acquire one across these great isles. The Costa Express machines that innocently sit just inside almost every single supermarket you walk into these days are, as well as being horrendously ugly, the natural conclusion of a process of cultural homogenisation that started with the supermarkets themselves.
Oh yes, it all started with the supermarkets. Oh, so convenient! We can get all of our food in one place! No need for the local greengrocers or butchers when we can just pop to Tesco! Look at where that has got us – have you ever been inside a branch of the supermarket called Iceland? It’s a nirvana of frozen food stuffed with so many chemicals that if we were to somehow revive our neanderthal ancestors and feed it to them, they would almost certainly drop dead the moment they took one bite of it. We are at the point where it is both far more effort and much more expensive to consume fresh bread, fruit, vegetables and meat than it is to just order something on Uber Eats that comes from one of the 47 identically shit takeaways that now populate your local high street.
Once the route to convenience had been plotted on the map, it became seemingly unavoidable, as we sacrificed more and more of what made life worth living in the quest for quick and cheap, but entirely unsatisfying, ways to live. I accept that there are multiple factors at play here, including social media, Brexit and COVID (that is another essay entirely, darling), but I lay the blame for the rapid increase in the pace of collapse over the past decade largely at the feet of Mr Jeff Bezos. What need do we have to visit the local high street when we can get everything from cottage cheese to condoms at the click of a button on our smartphones? I’m pretty sure my Mother could single handedly revive the town centre of Burton upon Trent if she diverted the cash she spends on Amazon to the few decent shops that remain there, but why would she? Then she’d have to drive there, park up and walk around, and that is a complete fucking faff.
I strongly believe that there are both physical and mental health benefits to going out and buying what you need. I jest about my Mother having to drive into town, but how much better is that than sitting at home and pressing a button? You get to see other human beings, you get a bit of exercise, you get to physically see what you’re buying before you choose it, and most importantly, as silly as it may sound, you get a small sense of satisfaction from having gone out and achieved something. In a small but meaningful act of rebellion, I have started keeping a running list of things I need to buy, and I now head into town once or twice a week to pick them up from actual shops. I’ve also reverted to doing my grocery shopping in-person, as opposed to having it delivered, although I accept I still frequent a supermarket chain for most of it (we all have to start somewhere!). Perhaps most importantly, I’ve stopped using Amazon, especially for books, as I now try to source them from local independent bookshops (of which there are heartbreakingly few nearby), or at the very least buy them from Waterstones (I know they’re owned by a hedge fund, but at least they still have shops open on most high streets, my favourite of which is their Nottingham branch, which I cannot recommend enough).
For the few shops that do remain on the High Street, we seem to be caring less and less about the way everything looks, making yet another sacrifice at the altar of convenience, this time, beauty. Everywhere you go, everything seems to look the same, as plain and unoffending as possible so as to appeal, or should I say be tolerable, to the maximum number of potential possible customers. When was the last time you walked into a shop and it felt like a unique experience? Do not even get me started on the endless number of American Candy shops, or the vape shops that are always called something ridiculous like Bum Fun Juice Vapes and look so luminous that you need sunglasses just to look at them. Why are we allowing this? Has the entire planning department at the local district council suddenly decided to go on holiday for twelve years? If the desolation and poverty isn’t enough to get you down, the ugliness surely will.
It is widely accepted that we’re in the midst of a mental health crisis that is penetrating every corner of society, yet no coherent explanation for this exponential increase in depression is forthcoming. May I offer one? Take a wander through your local town centre – it’s enough to make anyone feel like shit.
