Asking because I see on YouTube all of these videos of towns in the UK, and it seems like the high streets are just chicken shops, sports betting , fast food etc. Back in ~2010 I visited (road trip from the Cotswolds up to Edinburgh) and it was pretty quaint, not many chains, lots of little cafes where you could get a fry up and a cup of tea run by some working class middle aged folk etc.
Also I lived in France for a hot minute in the middle of nowhere and witnessed this same phenomenon.
Whenever I’d go to the “larger” cities (populations 20-40k) there were no bistros, just fast food restaurants with “crousti poulet”, French tacos (look it up if you haven’t heard of them), vape stores, places selling abominable waffle desserts……..
Were they always sort of like this, the more working class cities? Just a half hour to small towns and there’s far more local business, still a tacos or pizza place but split more evenly. Was near impossible to find french food that wasn’t fancy as fuck in Mâcon
. Is this a phenomenon there too in your country, fast food that isn’t like, “American”, endemic to the country, but still feels kind of cheap and hollowing out the culture