I love Oxford. I lived there for four years a student. The Cornmarket and Westgate Centre are like any city's shopping streets but there is plenty more. If you want artisan type stuff, go to the Covered Market or to Summertown in North Oxford, 15 minutes walk or 5-minute bus-ride from the centre. Walk from the centre down the High, past Magdalen College, over Magdalen Bridge, and you're in Cowley Road, a multicultural working-class area with lots of cheap restaurants, and cheapish pubs with happy-hour deals etc. Accommodation (permanent and hotel-wise) is expensive but you can live there quite cheaply if you know the right places (and the right people - there's a good community spirit).