death of the town centre

I was walking through Swindon the other day when I noticed a sign in the window of a printer ink reseller. The sign said "Relocating to Internet" and that got me thinking about people who don't have or don't want Internet access and about the very real danger of their disenfranchisement from society and whether this will have a negative impact on their quality of living and the impact on the general population.

This pattern of thought was driven by the fact that economic reality will force more and more businesses to trade exclusively online as more and more customers demonstrate their preference for shopping online, or simply shop online because there is little alternative.

This will lead to an increase in empty shops in town centres, and elsewhere. The lease owner will still be responsible for Council Tax and Business Rates so will have expenditure but no income which means that the lease owner will let the lease lapse at the end and the business owner, who still has to pay local taxes even though the property is empty, may simply demolish their premises,

This means that the local authorities will see a decline in revenue and so they will have to increase the rent on the properties they own and increase local taxes which may have the knock on effect of pushing more businesses either soley online or in to liquidation.

This would lead to more revenue loss for local authorities which leads to higher taxes and rents, higher prices to the consumer as businesses struggle to meet their running costs which leads to more migration to the Internet or business liquidation which leads to more empty shops which increases the disenfranchisement of those who choose not to use the Internet or simply can't.