Sadly, this is happening everywhere. In Melbourne (Australia), several of our better camera shops have closed in the past year. The two I miss the most are Michael's Camera, which had probably the best stocks of darkroom supplies in the city central area and also did color and B&W processing. Now no more.
Michael's collection of old cameras, collected over the years as customers traded in their old gear for new and the owner held on to those trade-ins for his collection, was very disorganised and on display more as clutter than any organised system, but it was a fascinating place, well worth an hour or so browsing the many types of cameras amateurs and pros alike in Australia tended to use over the past century. The collection is now being catalogued and will be sold at auction, some time in the future. A sad loss indeed.
The second best shop in the city center was, for me, Camera Lane, which also folded up its tent but didn't close, just fled to the outer suburbs where rents are much cheaper and more space available for the money. The owners have told me they intend to stay in the trade - Alan Lane intends to be "the last man left standing in the secondhand trade" and they seem to have a lot of good stock in both film and digital gear, so chances are good. Vanbars in Fitzroy are still there, but their darkroom supplies look to be running down a little, and some customers are finding a lot of outdated chemistry on the shelves, so caution may be the best word if/when buying there. Service continues to be excellent and staff are good with advice on all aspects of photography, so it's still a good place to shop.
The problem here seems to be almost everybody is getting out of film and into digital. Going by the great mounds of 'D' equipment on the shop shelves and the dwindling supplies of 'analog' gear.
All things change in time. I would prefer it the changes to be slowly rather than quickly, but we can only wait and see how it goes. This is after all the 21st century.
