Over the past ten years, more than 140 thousand stores have disappeared from Italian streets and squares. 5,200 butcher shops, 2,500 bakeries, dairies and bakeries have closed their doors. And then hardware stores, clothing stores, newsstands, bookstores, fishmongers, hairdressers. In small towns - those hardest hit by population decline - between 2014 and 2024 more than 26 million residents saw one or more “basic” businesses, including bars and gas stations, disappear for good. Now it is necessary to travel miles to buy everyday goods, because not everything can be bought on Amazon, starting with coffee with friends. A recent Confesercenti dossier examined the different aspects of what is called commercial desertification. It is both a paean to progress and a gallery of horrors, since stores and markets did not just provide goods and services, but also helped keep people's ties alive. Stores, with their storefronts were social sentinels, conveying the image of an active, populated and safer city. This world is waning, replaced by the new world of the digital economy.