The battle for the high street: retail gentrification, class and disgust

Drawing our attention to understudied retail gentrification, Battle for the High Street provides a critical, class-cantered account of the policies that aim at regenerating the allegedly ‘dying’ high streets of British towns. Analysing discourses and practices encapsulated by the 2011 Portas Review of high streets, the author contends that the urge to regenerate the British main shopping streets is driven not by a need to replace vacant retail space or less profitable activities such as betting shops and fast food places, as alleged, but follows, instead, certain class interests, moralities and tastes. Specifically, high street regeneration is driven by a middle-class desire for distinction from the ‘abject’ working classes through consumption and the settings it takes place in. The result of such transforming ‘classed geographies of consumption’ (p.39) is retail gentrification, which serves the interests of the middle classes at the expense of the working classes, who experience a radical change in the facilities, prices and aesthetics of the high streets that traditionally catered to them. After all, the battle for the high street is a battle between classes.