Apparently central planning is bad now

We agree with the claim but are surprised at the source:

In 2004 the New Economics Foundation (NEF) conducted a national survey of UK high streets, which were then still economically active. It found that real local shops had been replaced by swathes of identikit chain stores, making high streets up and down the country virtually indistinguishable from one another. It also came up with a new vocabulary for talking about urban areas.

In this terminology, a “home town” is a place that retains its individual character and is instantly recognisable and distinctive to the people who live there, as well as those who visit. A “clone town”, in contrast, is a place that has had the individuality of its high street shops replaced by a “monochrome strip of global and national chains”.

This is bad. It’s just that to have the New Economics Foundation, The Observer and John Naughton all telling us that central planning is bad is a bit of a surprise. In any other area of life - education, health care, even housing - we’d have them shrieking at us that variation over geography would be that dread postcode lottery.

Oh well, consistency is for the little people no doubt.

Tim Worstall