Another phone shop

A new shop opened on Streatham High Road a while ago, selling mobile phone covers, accessories and unlocking services. It replaces a tiny sandwich bar that had survived several years despite only opening in the morning.

I am still surprised by the proliferation of these shops, which are epidemic in South London and probably across the rest of the city too. It seems inconceivable that there is a sufficient market for phone customisations to sustain so many ofthese establishments. Many of them are not shops in their own right, rather they exist as tiny booths (often not much more than a vitrine and a chair) that sit in a small subdivision of a newsagent, barbers or butchers. The legality and tenancy of these businesses are, one suspects, something of a grey area. They appear, at first, to be parasitic upon the existing high street landscape, appearing for as long as the host business is viable and compatible with the patchwork, shanty aesthetic of the concession.

I wonder if they suggest a growing trend towards the sub-division and subletting of retail space in order to counter rising ground rents. It seems like a shift to a more freeform, bazaar-style retail landscape. One could picture high streets overflowing with micro-businesses providing a patchwork counterpoint to the expansion of generic shopping streets (which seem to be universally reviled even as they are universally patronised).

The best example of this (at least in south-west London) is the ‘Latin Boulevard’ in Brixton – an ordinary sized retail unit at the end of a parade which has been subdivided into half a dozen smaller units and acts as a shopping arcade serving mainly the Colombian community . It offers hairdressing, travel agency, currency exchange and other facilities. The use of ‘Latin’ reminds of a reading I listened to recently by Rebecca Solnit from her book “Storming the gates of Paradise” in which she talked about the differences between Latin and American use of urban space. In particular the way that Latinos used the front porch and garden as a way of bridging the gap between private and public. I wonder to what extent ethnicity has affected the retail landscape in London. The traditional English shop acts as an extension of the Englishman’s castle – it is a territory which is under the sole dominion of the shopkeeper. Are the phone concessions the result of alternative shopping traditions being introduced to the London retail landscape?

However, this was not what I was intending to write about.

What interested me was the way in which mobile phones are marketed as a disposable item, the turnover of new phones in Britain is very fast and the industry relies on this to maintain its increasing growth. The development of new features and designs keep the desire for an upgrade constant. Phones are some of the most technically advanced consumer objects available, and yet they are routinely dispensed with for the newest model. Even home computers (which are of similar complexity) are less frequently replaced.

Quite what this points to, I’m not sure. Its not simply a symptom of a culture of consumption, I think there is also something about the mobile phone that exaggerates their disposability. But what?