RIP Britain's high streets. Stop bewailing them and think afresh | Toby Moses

Creativity and local government help could recreate jobs and community spirit, putting an end to mourning a corpse

The high street is dead. We need to stop trying to revive its bloated corpse and start thinking about how to replace the jobs and the community spaces it provides.

Mothercare, Homebase, House of Fraser - these are just the latest big names being whacked by our ever-increasing desire to shop online. That's unlikely to change - more Woolworths, HMVs and C&As (remember them!) will fall by the wayside in the coming decade. We can rail about the unfairness of it all - and nobody apart from Jeff Bezos would complain should Amazon be hit with a hefty tax bill to equal out their competitive advantage - but the convenience of buying a jumper while sat on the sofa in your pants isn't going to be beaten by a more pleasant in-store "customer journey".

Related: Britain's high streets can thrive again - if we look past shops | Andrew Carter

Let's encourage 'experience' businesses to open up in empty shops - rather than encouraging them to shut down

Related: Six reasons why Britain's retailers can't make ends meet