Short term - no-one really knows. Medium term - no-one really knows. Long term - no-one really knows. Apart from
@mixed_biscuits who understands bell curves among mixed biscuit packs. Why are these packs always digestive heavy btw? Where are the custard creams, the patron saint of sugar and fat combos? Where are those Viennese things I keep forgetting to grip?
If retailers are hit, one small but unlikely gesture would be to adapt these premises for affordable housing. That’s practical sci fi, only from my own desire to see civic centres adapt to the needs of so many people currently. Shit night clubs and clothes shops aren’t beyond the remit of dare I use the term structured repurposing. If retailers are going bust, offer younger people the chance of stable, zero interest schemes that puncture the nationwide housing farce. Imagine quiet, peaceful, urban centres, where people actually live, as opposed to the slaughter-house, meat-market puke and piss dens most urban centres historically resemble at weekends. There’s a lot to be said for calm.
This thing that we inhabit currently offers the chance for far, far greener socio-economic reform, but I have next to no hope of that being realised and lack the personal wisdom as to how we might get there collectively. Growth, that ubiquitous phrase for economic progress, could get reframed entirely from such a position.
Granted, more of a Ken Loach sci-fi approach, which doesn’t include much sci fi (if any at all).