Maybe we cooda kept big stores intown...and all the shops. Made it sorta vibrant and growing. Think how attractive it cooda bin.
I havent thought thru it all,but instead of letting all the space go out of town to big stores and warehouses and wotnot we cood have made coming into town easier. Out of town shopping was made cheaper by cheaper rents but it ate up the land and spread the urbanization. It garnered more car parking and more car and lorry travelling with car parks and all. Inner town went out of town cos it was cheaper...but it was more costly in lots of ways. If we could have had frequent bus or tram into town what excitement and visual pleasure it could have been. Still,we went the American way...spreading out the sprawl letting our towns become ghost towns. Now...too late to go back? We 'saved' a dollar but lost a wedge. Now we've ate up more land with more uglification with additional warehouses and petrol stations and supermarkets: concrete.
I feel sure there are arguments against my vision,but the one we have or seem to have adopted just Americanizes GB,and we dont have th space or want to lose the space to sprawl. Might be okay in France: bigger country. But here towns creep into towns,cities into cities.
Now we have Bezos building his grey monolith warehouses all over green fields...yes,admitted next to motorways...but six months back they were full of cows and some woods. More ruination!