17) Demand: Retail, food and drink

To be blunt, if there is more space than demand for retail, food and beverage, then there will be lots of empty shops and empty retail space looks shit. We can’t have such space everywhere, so must focus the right amount of space in the right places to meet demand. Having not quite enough space is actually better than too much, since it is more likely to be occupied, used, and busy. And nothing looks worse than empty shops.

When deciding where to put such space we need to think about the principle of co-location to create life as set out previously and then estimate demand. There are fairly complex ways of doing this, but at the most basic level we can look at other places where there is too much, too little or the right amount of space and work out how many square metres there are per head of population, and then compare that to another location.

The death of the high street is being proclaimed by many commentators as a result of online competition. However, now is not really the death of the high street but a challenging evolution, the fittest will survive. Most will change and in most the amount of physical retail space will reduce.

The extent of online competition also varies significantly between different countries, and even places within countries. In the UK we just have too much retail space in most centres and a well-developed online sector. Amazon for example only opened in Australia in 2017 and online competition is more limited but developing. Whereas in the US and UK Amazon is well established. The trend tells us that there is probably going to be way too much retail floor space in Australia soon as the online presence strengthens. We can use the data in the table below to compare retail floorspace in different countries by head of population.

Source: International Council of Shopping Centres Research

Demand is a key driver, but don't forget demand still has to be attracted if there is competition and if the driver is optional activity led. If there is too much space then there will be unsightly empty spaces on the high street. Life inspires and attracts other life, whereas death is avoided by people, so its better to provide less space for it is more likely to be full of life and is therefore more likely to inspire other life.

Remember empty shops are empty for a reason- and in most cases simply filling them with something won't fix the fundamental problems that made the high street weak in the first place.

If those snails on the picture at the top haven't put you off, section 18 is next.