Abstract
Debates on morality and value are never far away in discussions of High Street trends. Witness, for example, the now established critiques of ‘fast fashion’, in which cheap, mass-produced goods arrive on the High Street courtesy of globalized production systems. As numerous commentators have highlighted (e.g. Crewe 2008; Tokalti 2008; Hoskins 2014), this involves mass market retailers such as Primark and New Look treading the path of least resistance, using cheap offshore labour to produce styles that are available on the High Street merely weeks after their initial exposure on the catwalks of Milan, Paris and New York. But there’s a notable reaction against this, with the growing discontent with this type of model encouraging some consumers to seek an alternative in the form of ‘slower’ fashion. This takes different forms, from searching through thrift stores and charity shops for recycled bargains (Gregson et al. 2002) through to supporting fair trade and craft production, knitting and sewing (Crewe 2016). Arguably, the negativity surrounding fast fashion has also valorized clothes that are well-crafted, durable and of known provenance, with those that can afford it spending considerable sums on goods that they think are more ethical than those found in many High Street retailers (Crewe 2016).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Augé, M. (1995). Non-place. London: Verso.
Bell, D., & Hollows, J. (2011). From River Cottage to Chicken Run: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the class politics of ethical consumption. Celebrity Studies, 2(2), 178–191.
Blythman, J. (2010). Bad food Britain: How a nation ruined its appetite. London: Fourth Estate.
Browning, B. (2014). Costa coffee announces plans for new store in the market place, Faversham. Kent Online, 13 May, http://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/costa-set-to-take-on-17165/
Burgoine, T., Forouhi, N. G., Griffin, S. J., Wareham, N. J., & Monsivais, P. (2014). Associations between exposure to takeaway food outlets, takeaway food consumption, and body weight in Cambridgeshire, UK: A population based, cross-sectional study. British Medical Journal, 348, g1464.
Caraher, M., O’Keefe, E., Lloyd, S., & Madelin, T. (2013). The planning system and fast food outlets in London: Lessons for health promotion practice. Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública, 31(1), 49–57.
Carpenter, J. (2012). Councils call for powers to halt betting shop clustering, Planning Resource, 28 February, http://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1119449/councils-call-powers-halt-betting-shop-clustering
Colls, R. (2007). Materialising bodily matter: Intra-action and the embodiment of ‘fat’. Geoforum, 38(2), 353–365.
Cookney, R. (2014). Fast food mile: The school run that has 34 takeaways on one road. The Daily Mirror, 26 April, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fast-food-mile-school-run-3463153
Crewe, L. (2008). Ugly beautiful? Counting the cost of the global fashion industry. Geography, 93(1), 25.
Crewe, L. (2016). Geographies of fashion: Consumption, space and value. London: Bloomsbury.
Davies, A. (2010). Broadway goes upmarket. Hackney Citizen, 12 February. http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2010/02/12/hackney-goes-up-market/
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2004). Reducing litter caused by ‘food on the go’: A voluntary code of practice for local partnerships. London: Defra.
Department of Health (2008). Healthy weight, healthy lives. London: HMSO.
Elias, N. (1982). The civilizing process. New York: Pantheon Books.
Evans, B., & Colls, R. (2009). Measuring fatness, governing bodies: The spatialities of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in anti-obesity politics. Antipode, 41(5), 1051–1083.
Everts, J., & Jackson, P. (2009). Modernisation and the practices of contemporary food shopping. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27(5), 917–935.
Franck, K. A. (2005). The city as dining room, market and farm. Architectural Design, 75(3), 5–10.
Fraser, L. K., Edwards, K. L., Cade, J., & Clarke, G. P. (2010). The geography of fast food outlets: A review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 7(5), 2290–2308.
Gentleman, A. (2012). Cheap meat and exploitation behind the chicken shop counter. The Guardian, 29 June, http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jun/29/chicken-shop-raids
Gonzalez, S. and Dawson, G. (2015). Traditional markets under threat: Why it’s happening and what traders and customers can do. http://tradmarketresearch.weebly.com/uploads/4/5/6/7/45677825/traditional_markets_under_threat-_full.pdf
Gonzalez, S., & Waley, P. (2012). Traditional retail markets: The new gentrification frontier? Antipode, 45(4), 965–983.
Graham-Leigh, E. (2015). A diet of austerity: Class, food and climate change. London: Zero Books.
Greater London Authority (2012). Takeaways toolkit. London: GLA.
Greater London Authority (2013). Open for business: Empty shops on London’s High Streets. London: GLA.
Gregson, N., Crewe, L., & Brooks, K. (2002). Shopping, space, and practice. Environment and Planning (D)—Society and Space, 20(5), 597–618.
Guthman, J. (2008). “If they only knew”: Color blindness and universalism in California alternative food institutions. The Professional Geographer, 60(3), 387–397.
Guthman, J. (2009). Teaching the politics of obesity: Insights into neoliberal embodiment and contemporary biopolitics. Antipode, 41(5), 1110–1133.
Hackney Independent. (2004). A market for Hackney’s new yuppies. Hackney Independent, Haggerston edition, Winter 2004, http://www.hackneyindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/win04.pdf
Hall, S. M. (2011). High Street adaptations: Ethnicity, independent retail practices, and localism in London’s urban margins. Environment and Planning A, 43(11), 2571–2588.
Hattersley, G. (2006). We know what food kids like best, and it’s not polenta. The Sunday Times 24 September, 14.
Health & Social Care Information Centre (2014). Statistics on obesity, physical activity and diet, England. London: HSCIC.
Highmore, B. (2008). Alimentary agents: Food, cultural theory and multiculturalism. Journal of Intercultural studies, 29(4), 381–398.
Hoskins, T. E. (2014). Stitched up: The anti-capitalist book of fashion. London: Pluto Press.
Hughes, D. (1995). Animal welfare: The consumer and the food industry. British Food Journal, 97(10), 3–7.
Jabs, J., & Devine, C. M. (2006). Time scarcity and food choices: An overview. Appetite, 47(2), 196–204.
Jackson, P. (2016). Go Home Jamie: Reframing consumer choice. Social & Cultural Geography. doi:10.1080/14649365.2015.1124912.
Jackson, P., & Viehoff, V. (2016). Reframing convenience food. Appetite, 98, 1–11.
Jeffery, R. W., Baxter, J., McGuire, M., & Linde, J. (2006). Are fast food restaurants an environmental risk factor for obesity? International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity, 3(1), 1–12.
Kern, L. (2015a). From toxic wreck to crunchy chic: Environmental gentrification through the body. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 33, 67–83.
Knox, P. L. (2005). Creating ordinary places: Slow cities in a fast world. Journal of Urban Design, 10(1), 1–11.
Koch, R., & Latham, A. (2014). Inhabiting cities, domesticating public space: Making sense of the changing public life of contemporary London. In A. Madanipour, S. Knierbein, & A. Degros (Eds.), Public space and the challenges of transformation in Europe. London: Routledge.
Maguire, E. R., Burgoine, T., & Monsivais, P. (2015). Area deprivation and the food environment over time: A repeated cross-sectional study on takeaway outlet density and supermarket presence in Norfolk, UK, 1990–2008. Health & Place, 33, 142–147.
Marshall, D. (2005). Food as ritual, routine or convention. Consumption Markets & Culture, 8(1), 69–85.
McDonalds and Allegra Strategies (2009). Eating out in the UK 2009: A comprehensive analysis of the informal eating out market. London: Allegra.
McMichael, A. J., Powles, J. W., Butler, C. D., & Uauy, R. (2007). Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health. The Lancet, 370(9594), 1253–1263.
Merrifield, A. (2006). Henri Lefebvre: A critical introduction. London: Taylor & Francis.
Morland, K. B., & Evenson, K. R. (2009). Obesity prevalence and the local food environment. Health & Place, 15(2), 491–495.
New Economics Foundation (2003). Ghost town Britain: The threat from economic globalisation to livelihoods, liberty and local freedom. London: NEF.
New Economics Foundation (2010). Re-imagining the High Street: Escape from clone town Britain. London: NEF.
O’Neill, M., & Hubbard, P. (2010). Walking, sensing, belonging: Ethno-mimesis as performative praxis. Visual Studies, 25(1), 46–58.
Pearce, J., Hiscock, R., Blakely, T., & Witten, K. (2009). A national study of the association between neighborhood access to fast-food outlets and the diet and weight of local residents. Health & Place, 15(1), 193–197.
Pike, J., & Leahy, D. (2012). School food and the pedagogies of parenting. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 52(3), 434.
Potter, L., & Westall, C. (2013). Neoliberal Britain’s austerity foodscape: Home economics, veg patch capitalism and culinary temporality. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 80(80), 155–178.
Public Health England (2014). Obesity and the environment: Regulating the growth of fast food outlets. London: Public Health England.
Raynor, J. (2013). Fried chicken fix: After-school fast food. The Guardian, 26 October, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/26/fried-chicken-fast food-shop-schoolkids
Rhys-Taylor, A. (2013). Disgust and distinction: The case of the jellied eel. The Sociological Review, 61(2), 227–246.
Rich, E. (2011). ‘I see her being obesed!’: Public pedagogy, reality media and the obesity crisis. Health, 15(1), 3–21.
Ritzer, G. (2003). Islands of the living dead the social geography of McDonaldization. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(2), 119–136.
Royal Society of Public Health (2015). Health on the High Street. London: RSPH.
Shift (2012). Chicken shops and poor diet: Summary of research findings. London: Shift.
Slocum, R. (2007). Whiteness, space and alternative food practice. Geoforum, 38(3), 520–533.
Smith, J., Maye, D., & Ilbery, B. (2014). The traditional food market and place: New insights into fresh food provisioning in England. Area, 46(1), 122–128.
Spiller, K. (2012). It tastes better because … consumer understandings of UK farmers’ market food. Appetite, 59(1), 100–107.
Sturm, R., & Hattori, A. (2015). Diet and obesity in Los Angeles county 2007–2012: Is there a measurable effect of the 2008 “fast-food ban”? Social Science & Medicine, 133, 205–211.
Thompson, J. (2009). Britain’s growing appetite for fast food is proving insatiable. The Independent, 25 November, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/britains-appetite-for-fast-food-is-proving-insatiable-1826902.html
Tokatli, N. (2008). Global sourcing: Insights from the global clothing industry—The case of Zara, a fast fashion retailer. Journal of Economic Geography, 8(1), 21–38.
Townshend, T. G. (2016). Toxic High Streets. Journal of Urban Design, online early, doi:10.1080/13574809.2015.1106916
Valentine, G. (1998). Food and the production of the civilised street. In N. Fyfe (Ed.), Images of the street: Planning identity and control in public space. London: Routledge.
Watson, S., & Studdert, D. (2006). Markets as sites for social interaction: Spaces of diversity. Bristol: Policy Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hubbard, P. (2017). Fast Food, Slow Food. In: The Battle for the High Street. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52153-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52153-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-52152-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-52153-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)