Hello everyone.
I’m 26 and don’t really remember high streets before about 10 years ago, or at least not viewing them as an adult, so was wondering what “alive” high streets looked (or look) like either now or 10/20/30+ years ago.
A nearby sort of high street really a village street has a bunch of nice pubs and seemingly crucially some really nice small independent cafes that always have a great vibe to them with reasonable prices. I remember a couple of nice music shops as well selling cds or something ten years ago that have long since closed down.
What sort of memories/experiences do you have of high streets that are or were “alive” and exciting places to be?
Edit: Thanks for the comments everyone some good insight
Post basically ends here, below tl;dr is basically a maybe slightly incoherent rant about what annoys me about high streets in London.
My local “big” high street however in a pretty wealthy suburb of London is pretty dire tbh some half alright pubs but mostly just those weird places, one that seems to only sell stuff like very very cheap suitcases or handbags that nobody is ever in, then the nail salons barber shops (that only deal with cash) & American candy shops. And then of course 55 million gambling shops or off licenses where somebody buys maybe a can of coke every 45 minutes or some mentos or something so you wonder how they can even afford the salaries of the people that work there.
So F ing Partridges and God knows however many restaurants or whatever in London have to close because they can’t afford rent apparently yet these F ing candy shops enormous weird furniture stores that nobody is ever in can exist hmmmm.
And it’s not like my area is impoverished or anything it’s extremely expensive to live here..