In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers • Hacker News Board

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#61

Post by some_furry » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

shrugger wrote: post #44

gh-lfneu28 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to see you downvoted for expressing a great American freedom, voting with your dollars.

Let them. I have a lot more dollars to vote with than downvotes to sit through. I have as much right to avoid contributing to disgusting deviants as they do to dislike me for doing so.

HN really isn't the place to astroturf LGBT people or call them "disgusting deviants".

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#62

Post by dang » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #17

I personally avoid Chic-Fil-A because of their anti-LGBT and pro-religion values, but I'm glad to hear they're pleasant for children.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11903321 and marked it off-topic.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#63

Post by tetromino_ » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #52

tetromino_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your kids are your kids and it's your choice how to raise them given your financial and time constraints, but teaching a 3-year-old to associate comfort and happiness with unhealthy food doesn't strike me as the wisest decision. When they are old enough and responsible enough for their bodies, they might decide on their own that they enjoy nicotine, corn syrup, salt, starch, and fry oil - but why bias them towards su…

> the cheeseburger, apple slices, and chocolate milk You could do much worse.

Certainly you could do worse. But you could also do better. Teaching young kids to avoid the high-sugar, high-salt, brightly-colored food trap is hard, but I have seen first-hand families that have done it.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#64

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #33

gh-lfneu28 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to see you downvoted for expressing a great American freedom, voting with your dollars.

I suspect they're being downvoted for comparing LGBT folks to "weirdos or spiky-haired freaks" moreso than having a contrary choice in fast food restaurant.

[deleted]

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#65

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #52

tetromino_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your kids are your kids and it's your choice how to raise them given your financial and time constraints, but teaching a 3-year-old to associate comfort and happiness with unhealthy food doesn't strike me as the wisest decision. When they are old enough and responsible enough for their bodies, they might decide on their own that they enjoy nicotine, corn syrup, salt, starch, and fry oil - but why bias them towards su…

> the cheeseburger, apple slices, and chocolate milk You could do much worse.

[deleted]

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#66

Post by jrbapna » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

em500 wrote: post #3

And in rich neighborhoods, Starbucks?

You would think, but the internet speeds are an issue, which severly limits their ability to make them community spaces. At many starbucks in my neighborhood back home you can barely get a website to load. Those few that offer internet by Google, rather than AT&T, seem to be much better. Ive always wondered why they cant simply limit the time one can use the internet before making another purchase rather than capping the speeds.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#67

Post by _RPM » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

spectralwarp wrote: post #57

_RPM wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you had a great childhood. My parents weren't really active with my academics, so that carried over with until it was time for college. Luckily I'll be a first generation college graduate in December.

Congratulations, that is a great achievement!

Thanks. I've been told that before. It kind of feels like I just woke up one day and knew how to program and was about to graduate from a 4 year University majoring in CS (state school). If I have kids, I want them to have many options when it comes to college time.

edit: spelling

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#68

Post by topspin » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

niftich wrote: post #37

protomyth wrote: post #4

I would love to see someone do a purpose built place with a targeted menu to see how it would do as a modern version of a community center. 1) big glass windows with good interior lighting

In some parts of Europe, McDonald's is actually a somewhat upmarket option, and fulfills a purpose similar to Starbucks in the US. Some downtown ones are in historic buildings with elegant furniture. This is a bit atypical, but here's a nice one in Budapest: https://mic.com/articles/85625/this-is-the-world-s-fanciest-...

When McDonald's opened in Moscow in the 1980's one of the things people frequently mentioned after standing in line for hours was the high quality of the food. It was normal McDonald's fair tailored to the local market. We're pretty spoiled people in the US. Some large fraction of the species can only dream of eating food as good as what McDonald's sells.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#69

Post by a2tech » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

swang wrote: post #29

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine services kitchen equipment for a living (in the UK), he regularly tells me McDonald's are the cleanest establishments he visits.

imo mcdonald's coca-cola taste is the best because they're the only ones that clean their fountainheads regularly.

I can vouch for that. Our McDonalds cleaned them every night-thoroughly. Our restaurant was also really quite clean. Even the 'icky' bits got a thorough cleaning at least once a week-our maintenance guy would break down the fryers and grill area and polish them to a shine.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#70

Post by epx » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

In Brazil we have a similar effect with shopping centers/malls, that tend to be pretty, clean and safe, not just a bunch of stores (the store rent inside the mall is higher than a street store). Shopping center becomes the default place to go since there is food there, it is open on Sundays. One downside is that stores are mostly empty, which negates a bit the original idea (--> shopping Then some people began to complain that there were too many "ugly people" (mostly poor and young teens that went there for the very same reasons as anyone else). There were some episodes of security barring the entrance of unaccompanied teens that looked "poor". Of course it didn't last long, cooler heads prevailed and I guess that McFlurries were not selling well :)