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Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

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Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#21

Post by pcwalton »

Animats wrote: post #7

It's like having a convenience store in the lobby of an apartment building. Seems like a great idea, but it takes a huge apartment building, or a city block of modest ones, to support a convenience store. Vending machines, maybe. We see this with all those "mixed use" buildings going up in Silicon Valley, with retail spaces on the ground floor. It's really hard to fill those retail spaces.

> We see this with all those "mixed use" buildings going up in Silicon Valley, with retail spaces on the ground floor. It's really hard to fill those retail spaces.

Yeah, I think this is because (1) Silicon Valley's housing shortage far exceeds any retail shortage; (2) such retail is often added just to encourage NIMBY city councils skeptical of new housing to acquiesce as part of a "community benefits" package, not because there's any actual market demand for retail; (3) in places like San Francisco, there are so many bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of retail such as the formula retail restrictions, discretionary review, and hostile neighborhood organizations like Calle 24 that act as gatekeepers to opening, that a lot of potential small business owners just won't bother. In a healthy market, I suspect you'd see these spaces get used more.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#23

Post by oftenwrong »

rgacote wrote: post #12

I've found that it is typical for people who run these small types of businesses also live in the neighborhood, or close by. Another improvement is that people who both live and work in the community have time for more community engagement, but it their children's schools, local government, or local volunteer efforts. Local businesses improve the community.

When people spend money at a locally-owned business, that money at least has a chance of staying in the community. When people spend money at a big national or multi-national chain store, a lot of that money is leaving the community, and never returns.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#24

Post by didip »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #13

How did we slip away so far from this being fairly obvious? Cities have worked well this way for hundreds of years. Maybe the industrial revolution made cities too unpleasant? Were we too spoiled by the automobile industry and government roads? White flight from cities into the suburbs?

My first guess would be the car lobbyists doing.

They are powerful enough to tear down so many street-car rails all over America.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#25

Post by jungletime »

I liked whistler village when I visited. All the cars are parked on the outside. Inside there is only walking, restaurants and shopping. Creates a really nice atmosphere.

Outdoor malls seem to be the closet thing to that. And are pretty great spaces to be in. Maybe will be more prevalent because of covid now. But they even work in cold places, there is one in Michigan that I know off.

I used to live across from a 3 story apartment building, maybe 20 apartments. Pretty run down place, with drug dealers, and just low income people.

Then the apartment building owner decided to do some landscaping. Planted a few trees, and put out some adirondack chairs on the front lawn. Which attracted a guy wanting to play his guitar outside. Which then attracted an audience. Which then turned into a nightly gathering of people on the front lawn playing music from the apartment building. People with drug and alcohol abuse problems still live in that building. But now that place has real sense of community. And actual happy moments are shared outside nightly. Where as before everyone would rush through the front door to their apartment, now they stop and say hi to each other.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#26

Post by bezmenov »

madamelic wrote: post #2

Mixed use zoning is just about the best case situation for everyone. - Less reliance on cars, which results in less parking, which results in less traffic... it becomes self-perpetuating. - Better walkability - Knowing your corner store clerk or at least having a rapport with them - Healthier citizens, due to them walking everywhere (Go to NYC and see how few overweight people you see... not many unless they're touri…

The issue is that the residential density of suburbia (the vast majority of Australia, Canada, NZ and the US) precludes mixed use zoning.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#27

Post by munk-a »

didip wrote: post #24
aahhahahaaa wrote: post #13

How did we slip away so far from this being fairly obvious? Cities have worked well this way for hundreds of years. Maybe the industrial revolution made cities too unpleasant? Were we too spoiled by the automobile industry and government roads? White flight from cities into the suburbs?

My first guess would be the car lobbyists doing. They are powerful enough to tear down so many street-car rails all over America.

Indeed - car lobbyists and marketing... and likely that torch was picked up and carried further by oil lobbyists. America has been slowly pushed toward viewing walking places as being abnormal so instead of cars being for trips and vacations they are seen as standard and necessary for commutes and runs to the store.

There is only a very small segment of the population that benefits from constantly driving everywhere and they aren't the ones in the cars.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#28

Post by chills »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15
aahhahahaaa wrote: post #13

How did we slip away so far from this being fairly obvious? Cities have worked well this way for hundreds of years. Maybe the industrial revolution made cities too unpleasant? Were we too spoiled by the automobile industry and government roads? White flight from cities into the suburbs?

People wanted their children to be separate from people of other socioeconomic classes (and races), and the way to do that in the US is to move to a school district they others can’t afford.

This has also been the case for hundreds of years though.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#29

Post by oftenwrong »

rland wrote: post #3

When I visited Japan, I went to an izakaya with room for maybe 9 people in it, it was smaller than my living room at home. I was hungry and I saw the sign lighting the alley about 40 yards off the main road. I was thinking at the time, if I lived in that area, you bet I'd be there a couple times a week to talk to my neighbors. I wanted to ask those inside if they were all neighbors, because they seemed to know each o…

The cities in Japan are, of course, walkable in the extreme, but what really impressed me there was the suburbs and rural villages. Even deep in the countryside many people still can visit local businesses without a car. I think it is not a coincidence that it is so common there to see children walking or biking on their own to school.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#30

Post by Spooky23 »

madamelic wrote: post #2

Mixed use zoning is just about the best case situation for everyone. - Less reliance on cars, which results in less parking, which results in less traffic... it becomes self-perpetuating. - Better walkability - Knowing your corner store clerk or at least having a rapport with them - Healthier citizens, due to them walking everywhere (Go to NYC and see how few overweight people you see... not many unless they're touri…

In theory sure.

In reality, the financial system is oriented towards big capital. My aunt ran a coffee shop that was established by grandparents in 1939. It was in the lobby of a office building in he central business district of our little city. The building was bought by a Chinese investor. Like other similar stores, her rent went up 5x and she shuttered.

I live in a mixed use urban neighborhood. 50% of he storefronts are vacant or populated by death businesses like karate dojo’s.

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