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Forum for the Future, working with Tesco and Unilever, reckon that by 2022 what we buy, how we buy it and who from will have changed radically. In their report, Retail Futures, they look ahead 15 years to see what lies in store for shoppers and the retail groups. They see not only new or bigger store chains, more sprawling retail parks, and more poultry products and pasta sauces. Their visions range from multi- storey car parks converted into city centre allotments or"vertical farms"with produce markets where the parking payment booths once were, to a nation of stay-at-home shoppers who let their fingers do the walking to order in almost everything they need or let their refrigerators do the talking, with automatic, direct-to-store reordering and home delivery every time yoghurt, salad or beer stocks run low.Forum for the Future, a sustainable development charity founded by veteran environmentalist Sir Jonathon Porritt and which now advises more than 100 organizations in the public and private sector, says the reality of 2022 is probably somewhere between the two extremes. "It will be a mixture," said Tom Berry, the Forum’s main sustainability adviser.The high street is vital to the economy and the environment: nearly three million people work in retail which generates 6% of UK GDP-- and 2.5% of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. The Forum says stores and retail groups have a disproportionate influence over society as a result of marketing campaigns and daily dealings with consumers.The Forum’s researchers identified a range of factors which will affect what we buy, how we buy and who we will buy from in the next 15 years. They include: climate change, which is likely to affect agricultural production, higher- or lower- oil prices, new technology, advances in energy production, more globalization and demographic changes that will mean more immigrant labor and more elderly and single person households.They could prompt new shopping formats, says the Forum, like "Tesco Silver" outlets with customized products for retired baby boomers. They also reckon the bell could be tolling for endless aisles of utility products like toilet paper and bin liners, which might only be sold online, or from a utility section at the back of a store, alongside vast vats of liquids like fabric conditioner, where shoppers could fill reusable containers. The long queue at the checkout could also be history when bar codes are read for prices immediately an item is dropped into a trolley.The online revolution, says the Forum, has only just started: "We can anticipate innovations such as entering your postcode for hyper-local sourcing". Consumers, however, might also use the Internet to cut out the middleman and source direct from farms and manufacturers "so posing a threat to major retailers".The explosion in the number of TV channels and the rise of the Internet to download entertainment means store chains will have to work far harder to build, and keep consumers’ trust. One retailer told the researchers: "We won’t be able to rely on hitting millions of people at 7:45p.m. on a Wednesday night with a Coronation Street advertising slot."The Forum came up with four different visions of the future depending on high or low economic growth and changing consumer outlooks; whether shoppers want more convenience or to do more for themselves; perhaps buying more locally sourced products with more information about what their families are eating and wearing. Which of the following aspects has influence on people’s shopping behaviors according the researchers().

A. The changes of the population.
B. The emission of the country’s carbon dioxide.
C. The emerging of the baby boomers.
D. The rearrangement at the back of the stores.

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It’s often hard to see your mistakes as you’re making them. When it comes to living arrangements, a humdinger is being made in this country right now and few have noticed it yet."Yikes!The kids are moving back in!" Thus goes the mantra of the baby boom generation, circa 2007. Analysts estimate that some 18 million adults between the ages of 20 and 34 live with their parents. That’s roughly a third of that age group.But letting the kids move back in is not the societal error we’re talking about. Instead, the big mistake is the loudly voiced chagrin of the boomers. Most mistakenly decry the notion of the boomerang generation. In order to fully appreciate the depth of the error being made here, we all need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. This epidemic of kids moving back home is first, not "unprecedented," and second, it’s not a bad thing. The precedent for this trend can be found among the other 6.2 billion non-Americans on the planet, many of whom happily live with their adult children, often in three-generation households.Then there’s the growing number of non-Anglo Americans, including many recent immigrants, who see no problem in having adult kids contribute to the household. Finally, the agrarian history of this country before World War II allowed kids to live and work around the farm weI1 into adulthood.Adult kids moving back home is merely the most noticeable symptom of a larger, fundamental transformation of American society. We are nationally beginning to recognize the costs of the independence the so-called greatest generation foisted on us. We can’t blame them. They did have to grow up fast. Kids in their generation went off to World War II and grew up on the bloody beaches of distant lands.After the war, the survivors had factories to build and the wealth to buy their white-picket-fence dream out West. They designed a social and fiscal system that has served their retirement years very well. But their historically unique retirement system mistakenly celebrated independence and ignored the natural state of human beings--that is, interdependence.Moreover, their system breaks down with the onslaught of their kids’ retirement. We can already see the pension systems, both private and public, beginning to disintegrate under the weight of the baby boomers.We are now just starting to understand the substantial fiscal and psychological costs of separating the generations into so-called single-family homes with the ideal of a mother, father and two kids. But times change and so do cultures.Regarding boomerang kids, most demographers focus on the immediate explanations for the changes, such as the growing immigrant population, housing shortages and high prices, and out-of-wedlock childbearing.Many psychologists have noted that baby-boomer parents enjoy closer relationships with their fewer children that allow extended cohabitation. A recent survey conducted for Del Webb (a division of Pulte Homes Inc.)reports that only about one-quarter of baby boomers are happier once the kids move out.However, all these explanations are simply symptoms of the larger, more fundamental reuniting of Americans into households that include extended families--adult, kids, grandparents, grandchildren and other relatives -- rather than just nuclear families.The rate at which our American culture is adapting will accelerate as baby boomers begin retiring in waves. Creative housing arrangements are necessitating and allowing three generations to live together again- under one roof or in close proximity. Now some 6 million American grandparents are living under one roof with their grandchildren.Whether grandparents live in accessory apartments on the property or houses next door, these flexible housing options provide privacy and companionship at the same time. Grandparents can interact with their grandchildren while the parents work, and all benefit from the new togetherness. These 21st century housing arrangements are a creative way to handle the financial needs of the generation that is retiring and, yes, the adult children who are coming home.Such multigenerational households don’t make sense for everyone. Personality conflicts or family characteristics preclude such arrangements for some. Legal constraints such as building and zoning codes are formidable obstacles in most communities across the country.Often more room is mandated for parking your car than parking your grandmother. Home builders have been more interested in selling houses that satisfy immediate needs rather than anticipating the needs of the growing numbers of aging Americans.The culture itself frequently gets in the way, reinforcing the perception of a stigma attaching to lack of independence- the adult child who just won’t move out (and grow up) or the aging grandparent who eschews "being a burden".Despite these problems, once you begin talking with your friends about three-generation households, you will begin hearing stories about how such obstacles are being overcome. You also will begin hearing stories about the wonderful benefits of thinking about housing and family arrangements in creative ways. And you’ll hear stories about the fundamental satisfaction of living together again. The factor that holds back adult children moving back home is().

A. fiscal and psychological costs
B. adults’ unwillingness of growing up
C. the disturbing conventional ideas
D. the legal constraints of multigenerational households

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