iON Filings

Look at the blank shop-fronts at either end of this bus journey, and the crisis is clear. Fear reduces spending by households. Reduced spending means less money to buy goods and services. Less money spent means job-losses. Job-losses justify more fear.

Keynes’ key insight, back in the 1930s, was that markets aren’t perfect. Unless you can turn sentiment around, you can get stuck in a slump for years.

On the other hand, look at the shop fronts in Oxford and in Notting Hill. Forty years ago, both places were crammed with second hand bookshops, specialist stores, ordinary shops like butchers and bakers. Now, many of these have gone and have been replaced by chain coffee shops, mobile phone stores, national retailers, T-shirt shops selling English souvenirs made in China, and estate agents.

A few wonderful shops remain in Oxford - Duckers in the Turl, makers of elegant shoes that last a lifetime; Annabelinda, legendary dressmaker crammed behind the Playhouse theatre; the eternal and eccentric Boswell’s, with its toy-department at the centre of Oxford children’s lives; Blackwell’s, one of the world’s greatest bookshops; Walter’s, the old-fashioned gentleman’s outfitter with a barber shop upstairs. A few more have started up, like Maison Blanc and Gluttons, and shops along the Cowley Road and Walton Street. And there is still the huge variety of the Covered Market.

But they are the exception, not the rule. Mostly, especially in the very centre, we have lost places that offered variety, specialist knowledge or craftsmanship. The Cornmarket and George Street could be changed overnight for the shopping centre of any English provincial town, and nobody would notice the difference.

So what has driven the shift to sameness? It’s not that people did not want to buy well-made things. Growing wealth meant that there were more customers.

The problem was rents; national chains could afford to expand their network of shops, and earned much more per square foot than the old-fashioned stores. Landlords - in Oxford, mostly Colleges and the City Council - had no choice but to take the higher rents; they needed the money, to subsidize teaching, research and council services. The city became less diverse. Most people deplored it; but nobody could get off the treadmill.

Just for now, the slump may have changed that. The treadmill is in reverse. Landlords will need to take what rent they can get. Retailers who offer a real focus on the needs of particular customers can attract loyal customers who are willing to buy value, not price, even in a recession. As the public focuses on what it really needs, there won’t be so many customers wanting to buy branded, identikit, over-priced junk.

Maybe that’s the change in psychology we need. Not just a revival in confidence, but a focus on value and quality, so that we get more lasting pleasure, and less waste, from the next boom. Shop ’til you drop; it’s your patriotic duty. But think about where you do it, if you want things to be different next time.

- Harold Carter