Bohemia on the High Street

Abstract

So far, we have seen that in the battle to revive the fortunes of the High Street, particular businesses are valued over others. Slow food trumps fast food, and takeaways condemned. A high-class sex emporium might be okay, but ‘old-fashioned’ sex shops and lap dance clubs certainly are not. Betting shops are bad, as are discount pubs and off-licenses promoting cheap alcohol. Given all these businesses are capable of maintaining footfall and attracting customers to the High Street, isn’t clear that the distinctions drawn between toxic and virtuous businesses are about the vitality and viability of local shopping streets. Rather, there seems to be a conscious attempt to re-moralize the High Street via a deliberative policy push favouring particular forms of consumption over others. Within such visions, the working class are abject (Haylett 2001). Their lifestyles, tastes and needs are barely registered. In a sense, their views do not even matter. For in the contemporary context of ‘austerity urbanism’ (Peck 2012), local authorities appear to have given up on the idea they might invest in the needs of working-class communities and those on benefits. Instead, they act in entrepreneurial ways, seeking to lever in investment from the private sector. This is, of course, easiest in the context of housing, with ‘seriously under-valued’ council housing estates being developed into ‘mixed housing’ by corporations encouraged to do this by local authorities who lack the imagination or willingness to explore other models of regeneration. But it’s something closely associated with attempts to regenerate High Streets. In effect, many of our town and city centres are being remade in the image of the corporations’ target market: hip, young, affluent populations who are prepared to pay a premium for city living, and expect the High Street to match their gentrified lifestyles.