OddThinking

Not far from where I work is a small shopping area. It boasts a few dozen shops that straddle both sides of moderately-sized road.

For the last 10 years, I have visited this shopping area occasionally. I’ve watched with interest the current levels of redundancy in the assortment of retail establishments.

Let me give some examples. There are two pharmacies, one on either side of the road. There are two fish-and-chip shops, one on either side of the road. There are three hair-dressers. If you want to eat Italian food, you need to choose between one of the four Italian restaurants.

I used to find the lack of variety vaguely frustrating. Having two of the limited number of shops in the strip allocated to real-estate agents means you don’t have room for, say, a bike shop or a second-hand bookstore – both of which the area is severely lacking.

Eventually, however, I realised that this was excellent disaster planning. The local shoppers can feel reassured that if a nuclear blast, asteroid strike or a global-warming catastrophe hits all of the shops on one side of the road, the shops on the other side can continue to service their needs without interruption.

I realised that a dirty bomb wiping out one of the two bakeries wouldn’t stop the locals from having access to fresh meat pies. A Vogon Destructor Fleet destroys all of the buildings in one of the two schools next to the shopping area? No problem; their children can continue their education.

The planning hasn’t been perfect, however.

The two chicken shops are on the same side of the road. So are the two banks and the two community centres. The two Asian restaurants are on the other side.

The two Christian churches aren’t exactly the same denomination, so there is a risk that some parts of the congregation might notice should one of the churches be wiped out.

There must have been some simple miscommunication when they built the two libraries – one turned out to be for books while the other was for videos.

There has also been some shop turnover that has affected the redundancy. One of the two dentists closed up shop. The two hardware stores weren’t competing head-to-head; one specialised in auto-parts, so clearly one of them had to go. It was always too much to expect both of the op shops to remain open for long. It was disappointing to see one of the two fruit shops close, but at least it was replaced by a third bakery, so all was not lost.

In this context, you must understand how surreal it was for me to walk through the modest mall there, and to find that they had just opened a second post office! I was flabbergasted, and burst out laughing. My hypothesis must be true! How else would you explain having a new post office on the other side of the road to an old one?

Reality finally intruded when I walked across the road, and found the old post-office had just closed. They had migrated into the mall, not replicated.

I was sadly disappointed.