Walking along Reid Street and gazing through shop windows during normal shopping hours, one could not help but notice just how inactive most are. At times it appears as were not for the staff, some places would be virtually empty.

I know as a businessman, we like to see customers and lots of them.

We were walking and chatting, and I said to a visitor that Bermuda is a sophisticated country but with too few people to sustain it. We were not talking about sustainability of government, we were talking about the luxury we take for granted, such as having retail shops, boutiques and cafés or just a comfortable place to stop and socialise in the city, we seem to think it’s a given.

It is amazing how some of them survive and often do so out of sheer grit because of a personal dream and desire to make it on one’s own. Now compare our shopping experience with walking the streets of London, where there is hardly space on the sidewalks for all the foot traffic and where most restaurants are rammed.

I recall a shop and street in Barbados that was similar to London. I wondered how they kept their shelves stocked because an ordinary weekday shopping affair for them was like our Christmas by comparison. Certainly, there is a limit, beyond which is truly overcrowded — no pun intended — but Bangladesh may be an example of that. However, we need a transient population and there must be a magic number that works. Whatever that number is, we are a long way from that and need to consider what it will take to get us there.

Having a small population in and of itself is inflationary, as retailers are compelled to drive up the prices to compensate for lack of customers. Fewer people just means more cost as an unavoidable consequence.

All project development in Bermuda, whether private or public, has to face the same equation and favours a combination of enterprises and entities bundled together to enhance viability. Hotels went through that metamorphosis many years ago and transformed from simple rooming houses to mini-malls and resorts that, if you read old, historical accounts such as the Pitt Report, were referred to building little towns when they were first introduced.

Our predicament means that we have to adjust our mindset towards greater collaboration. It has already happened in larger countries where shoppers from all parts of the country and tourists look for the malls. When planners look at areas to develop, they combine all the ingredients that make a complete community, realising that from supplier to consumer it is to everyone’s benefit to do so.

The old song “no man is an island, no man stands alone” is a maxim worth considering. In fact, our forefathers demonstrated the wisdom of this approach from the very beginning with the development as St George as the common centre and capital of the island. Later, as the island expanded, it made practical sense to move the capital to a central location and they created a new municipality called Hamilton.

We originally had the Paget Port, so the new town was not a random development — it was planned and executed. Any new burst in our economy will need at least the same level of deliberation because growth and inclusivity will not happen as a random occurrence guided by an invisible hand, if it happens at all. It will be a result of vision and planning.