Birmingham Clone Town
Birmingham is a 'clone town'.
If you've walked around the city centre over recent years you'll notice that the vast majority of buildings that you pass on the high street are chain stores, and truly independent stores are few and far between. They're getting fewer by the day.
The result is a homogeneity of shopping options, and the feeling as a 'punter' that you could be walking up and down just about any high street in any city in the UK. That's where the term 'clone town' comes from - towns and cities are becoming indistinguishble clones of eachother.
I've spoken to a one or two of those few independents that remain in Birmingham's city centre and the message is that despite their businesses being successful it would be difficult for other independents to move in there at the moment, and that the situation is heavily weighted against the independent, rather than for it.
I think that's a shame, but is it just a fait accompli? Market forces favour shops that are co-branded, that can share overheads by spreading the load across multiple outlets.
If you're in the city centre this weekend, print off a copy of Clone Town Survey which is an amusing, yet slightly worrying, equation-based way of measuring a town's 'clone rating', and you can do it just walking around the city centre in about 30 minutes. A distraction from last minute Christmas shopping?
Stuart Hitch totted up a score of 14.5 (that's a high clone town rating).
I'd be interested to see what anyone else comes up with...