Orange Orchard Economics

This is just a quick post to distil my views on the empty high street problem.

Partly thanks to online retail, highstreets and city centres are dying - this is something pretty much everyone agrees is happening. Though pointing out the problem is easy, solutions aren't as forthcoming. Here's my plan:

1) Accept that we need less high street shop space. i.e. stop trying to artificially prop-up retail space that simply isn't needed in this online age.

2) Make it as easy for people to sell things on their local high street as it is to sell things on eBay. That is, create a public market space where people can hire kiosks/shop space by the hour, for a small fee. In effect, a local market place open daily, and open to everyone.*

3) Retail space that isn't needed repurposed. With some sold for new housing and some earmarked to become public parks and orchards.

4) More allotments. A greater emphasis on meeting demand for allotments in town planning. Viewing towns not just as spaces for housing and retail, but also as spaces for gardens, nature and food production. In summary, recreating the village green in macro.

*If the idea of selling things on your high street as easily as you would on eBay sounds strange, pause and think about it for a moment. Why is it so hard to sell things in the very town or city where you live? Is it really any wonder high streets and local economies are dying when they're so inflexible and difficult to enter as a seller. Perhaps if politicians stopped trying to strangle and regulate the online world, and instead tried to imitate it, local economies would re-bloom. After all, originally, in earlier times, it would've been perfectly normal for individual people to turn up at their local market place and flog their wares. It's only over-regulation that has stopped this organic process from continuing into our current era.

Again, you can list a bunch of items for sale very easily on eBay, or sell your homemade arts and crafts on a platform like Etsy. So why is it so difficult to take these very same items down to your local high street or town centre and do the same? Why is it so difficult to set up a stall, or book a slot of space on a morning or an afternoon?