Interesting reports on societal trends, generica, and retail

Brookland Hardware, Washington, DC, has to compete with Home Depot and Lowes.

I was doing a web search and while I didn't find what I wanted, I did come across these reports which look to be quite interesting. One is a "2005 Strategic Environment Report" on societal trends for the American Society of Industrial Designers. I especially like these paragraphs:

"For years, social critics have derided the coming of 'Generica': a country that in the eyes of most cultural critics is the same from region to region, state to state, and city to city. In the country known as Generica, when driving out from the cneter of the city on any given freeway, one can reliably predict where the next mall will be, what stores it will contain, and what any suburb will look like." (...)

"A more general and perhaps more profund question is 'Is this the beginning of the end of Generica?' Commercial Generica, the sameness of offices and urban layout, has been adriving trend in the built environments industry. The question then, is what drove the development of Generica, and how much would profound fragmentation of society impact regional differences in culture, lifestyle and even built environments? Wal-Mart may be feeling heat; but the ovn is just barely warming up."

Another is the "2004 Global Powers of Retailing" from Deloitte, which lists a number of other reports as well, including "Getting your Fair Share: Seven strategies for survival of the grocery industry." If you can't learn from these reports....

As it said in an e-newsletter I received yesterday...

Even in something as basic as a hardware store, there is an old adage that said if you had stocked a hardware store with the latest of everything and closed the doors for 7 years, when you reopened the doors you would find that half of your merchandise was outdated. This doesn't apply to just merchandise. It also applies to the strategy of which customers you are targeting, the hours you are open, the services you provide, and how you advertise. We have all seen a business that looks just as it did just five years ago. It is fine when you want a trip down memory lane, but it doesn't really work when you want to grow sales.

Home Depot, Brentwood, Washington DC and a whole lot of other places.