The 'death of the High Street'

Why would I want to go down my high street with my kids? It's horrible. Whichever one I look at. Crystal palace. Forest hill. Sydenham. Dulwich. Brixton. Noisy as fuck, traffic fucked. Nothing there to see or do.

Well, use it or lose it. Whether or not it's unattractive, it's still local. Obviously, many local high streets have seen a long time of decline and could be made much more attractive, but that usually requires better commercial fortunes, which can only be brought by customers--cue a slightly vicious circle.

In London, you certainly have the difficulty, which is a blessing in disguise, that most major high streets continue to be important traffic arteries. I say 'blessing in disguise' because elsewhere, where they may have been pedestrianised and made more pleasant, that has often been accompanied by building town centre bypasses, which then take a lot of potential shoppers past the smaller town to a bigger town, causing more commercial decline in the smaller place. There are plenty of high streets around to demonstrate this effect. Oddly enough, having car traffic going down the high street (often a bottleneck) can be a positive thing. That's not to say traffic volumes, pollution, and noise are not significant problems. Also, in London, public transport, especially underground rail, performs some of the functions of the town centre bypass.

Why wouldn't I prefer to have my food delivered (so I don't go to the box shop)?

As above, e.g. see the posts by ChasNotRobert.

Shopping and mooching around a town and a market shouldn't require eyes everywhere because traffic, it shouldn't require me to shout above road noise.

This is London, my friend. :)