Most of Canberra’s shopping centres were designed in the 1950s or 1960s.
Medium supermarket; smaller supermarket; takeaway; newsagent; butcher; chemist; petrol station; pharmacy; perhaps a manchester store of sorts; bank perhaps; post office.
Then women went into the workforce. Men still refuse to shop. So most of the changes we see are driven by the changes to women’s lives.
Others are driven by technology.
Some things have centralised; others have the potential for decentralising. Regulations change (slowly and reactively to meet demand).
Women have less time to shop they want to shop in one place. Supermarkets are allowed to carry meat. The butcher suffers. Some close. Some specialise and respond with trendy sausages and pre-prepared stir-fried.
Women cannot do a major grocery shop in business hours. Big stores in the big centres are allowed to open all hours. The supermarkets in the suburban centres suffer. No longer can they justify a surcharge for being open late.
I recall a jingle from my youth:
“”If you have forgotten something
“”When other shops are closed
“”Just pop right round to Barnes’ bright place
“”And pay right through the nose.”
Pharmacies have to open later, but not earlier. Women, again, carrying the burden of family health, snatch a doctor’s appointment in the day and take the prescription to the pharmacy in the evening. And the pharmacies diversify into teddy bears, sub hats and walking sticks.
Dry-cleaners open earlier: before women work.
The smaller supermarket and takeaway, previously struggling, find new life. The electronic revolution gives them games and the kids’ market. The pressure on women in the workforce gives them the last-minute market _ the forgotten-milk market and the “”all right, then, we’ll have takeaway” market.
Women at work are busy. They use the telephone and fax. The dedicated post office folds. The dedicated bank folds as people do all their shopping at major centres.
Cars change. No longer do they need a grease and oil change every 1000 miles. They get more specialised. Servicing is done at the dealers. Repairs get more specialised. The garages are threatened.
The businesses that cannot make it close. But the same forces that caused them to close allow others to open. Lawyers, real estate agents and accountants no longer have to be in the centre of town because of fax machines and computers.
The technology that gave use the Breathalyzer causes the big pubs and clubs to suffer giving opportunities for smaller eateries and drinkeries within walking distance in the suburban shopping centres.
The vacant shops allow odd businesses to move in; ones that could not afford the rent in the bigger centres. They become well known throughout the city for their specialty.
The health market changes. The baby centres are replaced by mixed medical practices that serve the aged.
Other service shops that could not survive on their own become strange mixed businesses of bank and post office agencies with dry-cleaning, photo-copying, shoe-repairs and photo shops.
Who says Canberra is a public-service town with no entrepreneurial spirit?
The suburban shops are dead; long live the suburban shops.