Can Future Shopping Experiences Be Present in the Past? The Case of a Local High Street

This chapter is a contemplation on the future experiences of local high streets based on analysing the past and present of one such local street, Södergatan in Helsingborg, Sweden. This street was established in the mid-nineteenth century, in an emerging working-class district, Söder, whose initial residents lived in crowded conditions. Without any modern technologies for storing food, or any cars for travelling longer distances, they walked everywhere, that is, to specialized stores, to work, and to school, on a daily basis. This created a vibrant street life with plenty of opportunities for social encounters. However, the establishment of new residential areas, shopping malls and supermarkets on the outskirts of the city gradually emptied the district post-1950s, until international migrants repopulated it post-1980s. These migrants took over small-scale stores and revived many of the previous retail and shopping activities occurring along this local high street. While this development bolstered the vibrancy of the street, part of the district was restructured as a distinctive consumption space based on luxury experiences. Hence, drawing on the case of Södergatan, there might be a dual future trajectory for local high streets with the first of these thriving on the sense of convenience and mechanisation of everyday items and the second providing up-scaled services to an upper-class clientele.