Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 427 posts

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#51

Post by jamestimmins »

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.

The first chapter of The Death and Life of Great American Cities touches on this topic a lot. Community safety is enhanced by mixed use, because there are reasons for people to naturally be there at all hours of the day/night. This contrasts with single use areas, which are essentially ghost towns in their off-hours.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#52

Post by frequentnapper »

I live in Tokyo, and pretty much every neighborhood has some cafe/izakaya being run from the back of a home by a grandpa or grandma. Usually these places are extremely tiny and can seat max 4 people. I've seen some of them open all night. Not sure if they have to deal with some sort of licensing especially for liquor.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#53

Post by tspike »

smoe wrote: post #43
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.

Hugely dependent on the region and age of the city, but yes. It is quite common to have to drive 5-10 minutes to get to the nearest shops, which are all concentrated in strip malls. Take a look at this satellite view of a Denver suburb: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9426077,-104.9504212,3545m/d...

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#55

Post by jwkane »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #14
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.

Well of course, who can afford the rent? It's not like a little four-employee computer repair shop can show up and fill the space.

Even if the rent was subsidized or more likely rent-controlled -- you still have to pay those four employees enough to live in commute range. That forces the margins you have to charge for computer repairs to shot up to a level that would make the Geek Squad blush.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#56

Post by vidanay »

smoe wrote: post #43
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.

Perfectly normal for there to be a thousand houses with no commercial.

Not a good idea, but still normal in many suburbs.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#57

Post by osdiab »

smoe wrote: post #43
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.

I grew up in a wealthy American suburb, the nearest grocery store was a 40 minute walk from my home, and I would have looked like a madman for simply walking on any street in the entire city because literally only beggars don’t ride cars. I’m glad to be living in Tokyo now!

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#58

Post by winter_blue »

epistasis wrote: post #33
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?

Yes, basically it comes down to racism and classism, and a bit of the fight against communism. There used to be racial covenants that ensures racial segregation. As soon as those were rendered illegal, people started zoning for "public safety" and such. The original decision (Euclid?) that rendered zoning legal explicitly states concerns about lower income people degrading neighborhoods if multi-family residences are…

That was really insightful, well-written and convincing. Thank you for sharing that.

(I've upvoted and favorated your comment.)

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#59

Post by vidanay »

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…

I've always liked the fact that nearly every major street in Chicago is lined with small businesses and the residential streets are no more than 4-5 blocks away from a major street.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#60

Post by srj »

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?

I have no idea if this has always been the case, but people seem to look at their house as a bank account. They defend it and try and raise prices by blocking new development, keeping residents deemed undesirable out, and enforcing a consistent cookie cutter look with trimmed lawns and just the right number of cars in the driveway.

With that mindset a business could bring in outsiders and be bad for their property value.

Post reply on HN