For years,if not decades.banks,post office and pubs have been disappearing on the British high street.Still,the scale and pace of the current crop of casualties seems exceptional,as well as the shortage of replacement activities.Where once the ex-banks could be readily converted into pubs,and a variety of often innovative bars and restaurants promised to breathe life into streets abandoned by traditional shops.now even those hopeful trends have been reversed.The various companies have widely varied reasons for their problems,yet together they symbolise the crisis on the high street.And the word"crisis"is justified.There are common,ancl familiar,problems.The squeeze on household incomes,with near-stagnant wage levels and bouts of relatively high inflation,has lasted since the financial crisis began a decade ago.Even with the British shopper"s ingenious way of defying financial logic,and clespite the Bank of Englancl"s attempts to put cheap money into borrowers"pockets.sooner or later there was bound to be a correction.While the money flowing into the high street has hardly risen.the supply of everything from cupcake stands to sandwich outlels has been expanding.pushing rents and wages higher.Huge retail developments are sLill looked on by desperate development agencies and local councils as the quick fix for any clevastated post-industrial landscape.Once again,sooner or later this vast overcapacity was going to run into the reality of weak demand.No matter how smart the store or niche the outlet,whcn overheads aren"t being covered by healthy sales,the future is bleak.Overarching all of that,however,is the digital revolution,with giants such as Amazon invading new retail sectors.Less well advertised is the simple trend among the British towards entertaining and making the most of their leisure time in their very expensive homes.Why go to a public house or a restaurant when your private house is just as entertaining and where virtually any pastime or product can be transmitted via satellite,web or cable technology,and a cheap takeaway delivery and a bottle of wine are just a couple of clicks away?Britain famously was once disparaged as"nation of shopkeepers",small-minded merchants with narrow cultural and political horizons.Then the British became notorious as a"nation of shoppers",small-minded consumers with narrow cultural and political horizons,as well as an almost reckless taste for debt and disregard for saving for the future.Now the British are becoming a nation of home-lovers,with pizzas arriving by moped and with a wireless hub for cosy nights in.For the sake of the high street,we need to get out more:either that,or local councils need to think hard about allowing more shops to be converted into flats.Then the British could become a nation of ex-shop dwellers,even if their cultural and political horizons remain as narrow as ever. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that high street retail business