I once found myself in a northern Spanish town which had recently lost its main industry.
Unemployment was high and times were doubtless hard for local businesses – a cycle with which we are familiar.
But I also remember being struck by one big difference between that community and our own when hit by similar misfortune.
Industrial devastation had not been accompanied by retail devastation.
There were no boarded up shops, contributing to the general economic gloom.
The small shops, and family-run bars and cafes which populated the town centre may not have been unscathed, but they survived.
It was an observation to which I have often returned in order to ask the question: “Why have we allowed so many of our town centres to get into such a mess?”
A good starting point would be to commission a serious, micro look at comparable towns and cities in other European countries.
Few of them, as far as I have seen, has the same problem on anything like the same scale.
So why not find out what makes the difference – and then try to replicate it here?
When I was a Scottish Office Minister, I tried to act on this.
As is the way with politics, by the time a pilot project was coming together, I was off to another job.
So while much has been said and written about town centres in the meantime – not least about Aberdeen – that approach of looking closely at how others do it in order to learn lessons does not seem to have recurred.
I still think it would be a very appropriate project for the Scottish Government to initiate.
Most of us can guess one of the answers which would emerge – that business rates here are far higher than elsewhere.
Maybe that is a conclusion politicians want to avoid. But they shouldn’t.
If pilot projects showed that empty shops could be filled by cutting business rates by half, then why not give it a try?
The big retail model for cities, far less towns, has declined – with the trend heading in only one direction.
With online shopping rising at a very rapid rate, there will be more retrenchment by businesses which have traditionally traded from our high streets.
They will go the way of banks and pubs.
So the time is ripe to try something radically different.
Slash business rates.
Buy up empty properties and offer them at affordable rents – perhaps on a basis that reflects turnover – to the many small, entrepreneurial businesses that could bring these places back to life.
Looking at how they do things in Europe might not be the flavour of the month but in this case, we would find we have a lot to learn.