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Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

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Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#41

Post by cwkoss »

jungletime wrote: post #25

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 s…

Japan has "shopping arcades" which I really like. It is like a wide pedestrian-only alley with the retail density of a mall, but outdoors and the path is covered. Then side streets are local access only and often have small restaurants or izakayas

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#42

Post by heidegger »

good idea but we can do ever better than that by build co-ops in residential neighborhoods

what we need are goods and services where people are, but that doesn't necessarily mean provided by businesses when they could be provided to and by the people who are already there

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#43

Post by smoe »

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?

Never been to an US residential area and only "know" them from tv shows. Are they really pretty much completely devoid of businesses as this article indicates? No grocery / mom and pop stores, bars, restaurants, hair dressers etc.? That sounds very inconvenient. I always assumed you'd get some basic commercial everywhere.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#44

Post by fiblye »

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.

Cities virtually everywhere in East Asia have convenience stores on almost every corner. They manage pretty well.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#46

Post by lotsofpulp »

chills wrote: post #28
lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They might not have had the means to do it though. Cheap fuel, cheap cars, 30 year fixed rate mortgages, widening income/wealth bands, etc.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#47

Post by adamredwoods »

dhosek wrote: post #36

This was once common in the inner ring suburbs of Chicago. There used to be a small grocery store in the middle of a residential block near where I lived and a bar in the middle of another residential block close to my elementary school. There are houses whose former mixed use (shop in the front, house in the back) are still obvious. Here's one surviving neighborhood grocery in Berwyn, IL: https://goo.gl/maps/NCd45gh…

Just a block away from a 7-11.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#48

Post by bezmenov »

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 worst part of visiting Japan is it spoils your enjoyment of every other destination thereafter.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#49

Post by nitwit005 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #30
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 storefro…

Investors have proven willing to keep homes and apartments empty as well. The behavior seems bizarre to me, but it seems you have to set tax policies to discourage it.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#50

Post by nitwit005 »

nimish wrote: post #35
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?

Racism. The roots of zoning are indelibly intertwined with reinforcing white supremacy.

Even with no zoning laws quite a few areas in the US would be like this. Companies have built giant housing developments with no shops.
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