At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm going to call out housing as a huge factor here for four reasons:

1. Every third space represents an ever-larger opportunity cost of being turned into housing. If you can close a pub and turn it into million dollar condos, that commercial rent is going up;

2. More expensive rents are an input into everything done at a business or third space;

3. This decreases spending ability in real terms. 20 years ago, you could get a pint in London for 2-3 pounds. Now it's 6-7. Have wages doubled? No. And pubs were (and are) part of the UK social fabric; and

4. People need to work more to pay for their ever-larger mortgages and other debt. This gives people less time.

Expensive housing is literally destroying society.

> Expensive housing is literally destroying society.

You can blame immigration for that, among other things (more people living alone for example).