Sometimes the ability of capitalism to absorb debate, trends and just get on with it is a joy to behold.
This is the headline of an advertisement by U.K. property development company Land Securities in last week's edition of real estate magazine Estates Gazette [subscription required].
The company is marketing one of its shopping malls that has space devoted especially to local and regional independent retailers. The ad goes on to say:
Evolving Britain needs cities with local character and identity. So in our recent redevelopment of the Princesshay centre in Exeter we reserved a street just for independent retailers.
In the last few years, Britain's high streets have become the battle-ground for debate on Clone Towns, with focus thrown on the prevalence and might of national and international grocery stores.
Hostilities have just broken out again with the publication by the Competition Commission of proposals to improve competition between grocery retailers in local markets and address relationships between retailers and their suppliers.
Journalists have taken up pro- and anti-supermarket positions.
On one side is India Knight of The Times:
Supermarkets are like tower block housing: what once looked like the future
now feels mired in the past and what once felt thrilling and new now seems
tired and passé.
On the other is Sathnam Saghara writing in the same paper:
Does it matter to shoppers in Watford that their main shopping
thoroughfare resembles the high street in Inverness? Isn't your average
branch of Boots a nicer place to be than your average independent Happy
Shopper?...And is it really true that independent
retailers have character? One independent Indian convenience
store/Portuguese café/fried chicken outlet seems much like any other to me.
Meanwhile the property market brilliantly adjusts its pitch.
Next month, there's a Slow Food Festival at LandSec's mall in Exeter, hosted by a deli called Chandos featuring wine by the glass and baguettes made up with their own shop produce.
In effect, Evolving Britain continues on its merry way, angsting about food and its distribution, rather than supply.
For grain prices are currently at record highs around the world.
Pakistan recently launched ration cards to provide subsidised food for
nearly 7m households.
And last week an undersecretary at the (alarmingly called) Ministry for Social Solidarity in Egypt - the world's largest importer of wheat - revealed that
The bread subsidy alone went up by around $820m last year to reach $2.45bn.
There's a simple message in all of this: Evolving Britain...worry not about where you buy your bread - but do worry about what it costs.