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Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

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Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#191

Post by m_mueller »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #178
moltar wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup see “shop houses” [1] in Southeast Asia for how it should be done. Shop house is a flexible creature. It can be a business, but is also easily converted into living quarters, if necessarily, or a parking garage, or whatever you want. It’s just a flexible, convertible space. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shophouse

Exactly. That’s partly why I love living in Vietnam. The neighborhoods are so vibrant and full of life. Everyone is out on the stoop. Neighbors all know each other and buy from each other. Of course, from my apartment I hear karaoke late at night, roosters early in the morning, and construction, always construction. So there are drawbacks. It would be disruptive, especially in suburbia. But I would love some middle g…

Even Tokyo works a lot more like this. It's a beautiful mess, but in addition it has some of the best public infrastructure.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#192

Post by Kliment »

antonvs wrote: post #158
gotoeleven wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It truly is the golden era of officious busybodies.

And misogyny apparently. Let's not pretend that all people like that are women.

Can someone with exposure to US culture give me a non-gendered equivalent to "Karen"? I've been looking for one.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#193

Post by Kliment »

bananamerica wrote: post #176
Spooky23 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is karate dojo death business? Do they kill a lot of people?

It's the kind of business that mops up empty commercial space, usually on a "until we find a better tenant" serial short-term rental agreement. See also kiosks, nail salons, vape shops, "outlets", pop-up shops etc.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#194

Post by dodobirdlord »

dgellow wrote: post #163
cameldrv wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, I like this a lot. The key is that for it to work, you must build taller, but it doesn't have to be all that tall. I've lived in several places that had great walkability, and they all had one thing in common: They were built before the invention of the automobile. The best for walkability was Berlin, which, in the inner part, is mostly 5-6 story buildings. Within two blocks there were numerous stores and…

I’m not sure about your argument of “you have to build up”. Lot of places in Europe have strict limits regarding how high a building can be and they do have lot of small stores around, Berlin, that you mentioned, is very strict on this. A few examples: Hamburg residential areas seem to have ~4-5 floors max. Groningen has neighborhoods where apartment building are limited to only 2 floors (So just two apartments). The…

~4-5 stories is totally sufficient to be "dense" compared to most of the US. Cities in the US sprawl absurdly flat. Consider that Paris is one of the densest cities in the world, and famously has almost no tall buildings.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#195

Post by siosonel »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #78
holler wrote: post #66

In Seattle this is prevalent, part of the charm.

Only in parts of it. There's a lot of the city that is just not suited to a walking lifestyle.

My wife and I got electric bikes about 8 weeks ago and they have been great for running errands in lieu of single-occupancy car trips. We live near the Interurban Trail/Aurora and the e-bikes enable much easier access to a variety of stores, restaurants, and parks, which are not easily walkable. We now appreciate the nearby bike lanes and quiet streets for making longer trips to bigger parks or neighboring downtowns like Edmonds. We recently had wanted to return to Capitol Hill to enjoy a more walkable neighborhood, but so far bikeabilty has been an excellent substitute. Plus, in four years there will be a light rail station near us to offer yet another alternative to car trips. We feel lucky to have these options in our "suburban" location.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#196

Post by conductr »

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #131
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…

Here's a crazy idea: no zoning. Let people decide what they want to do.

Houston is like this. I like it, but I grew up there, many people are so scared that it means a oil refinery or something could pop up next door one day but that stuff rarely happens. The market naturally seems to fill most of the voids in terms of demand, so it’s not like you have to go far to find a liquor store or something specific. That said, we built our cities in Texas for cars.

My adult life has mostly been in Dallas which is very different. I’ve attempted land development myself so know more than a layman but Dallas and especially surrounding suburbs have what feels like an insane level of zoning. I say “attempted” because there have been a couple dozen times where I see a building or raw land parcel and feel it would be perfect for some use. Do some research and find it wouldn’t be allowed. On some occasions I have a specific aesthetic (tasteful, but I like unique/artistic structures) that I’d like, only to find the town requires all buildings to be made/finished of no less than 80% red brick or paint 1 of 6 predetermined shades of brown. It’s killed my endeavors every time and honestly, makes the DFW area an architecturally soulless Place to be IMO. Just recently, maybe 2018, the state banned these local aesthetic requirements. But I think locally it’s still a fight to get something too far from the city planners vision built.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#197

Post by elgenie »

antonvs wrote: post #160
jrd259 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obvious why you have to call out the nationality of the investor.

There's some relevance in that investors like that are likely to have no ties to the community and no interest in anything other than profit. Of course many local investors are the same way.

Investors from outside of the community may not have interest in anything other than returns. “Investors” from an autocracy where future property rights can’t entirely be taken for granted may not be interested even in that; they could just want to hedge their government risk by parking some money in non-seizable assets located outside of the country, and then minimize any resulting management headache.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#198

Post by L_Rahman »

moltar wrote: post #184
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. That’s partly why I love living in Vietnam. The neighborhoods are so vibrant and full of life. Everyone is out on the stoop. Neighbors all know each other and buy from each other. Of course, from my apartment I hear karaoke late at night, roosters early in the morning, and construction, always construction. So there are drawbacks. It would be disruptive, especially in suburbia. But I would love some middle g…

I’m in Da Nang myself at the moment :D

Where do all these roosters live? I kept an eye out for them wherever I went in Da nang, but I never saw any of these roosters. Definitely heard them every dawn though.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#199

Post by elgenie »

bezmenov wrote: post #26
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.

If you mean zoning that requires first floor retail or whatever, sure. But mixed use zoning also means zoning that just doesn't ban small business, multi-family housing, and single-family housing coexisting on the same block.

The causality in your statement is backwards, because the lack of the latter kind of zoning is exactly what prevents inner suburbs from densifying organically. The current zoning in most of (at least US) suburbia is what artificially caps density.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#200

Post by bobthepanda »

_delirium wrote: post #129
bobthepanda wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different strokes for different folks. The corner bodega in my old New York neighborhood was open late into the night and made a good bacon egg and cheese sandwich. The important thing is that we should not legislate these out of existence.

I don't totally understand the economics of how those work in NYC. Just sheer density and throughput? Family-run shops staffed by extended family working unofficially (avoiding payroll tax, minimum wage, etc.)? Some mixture? In the "is DC a real city?" angst, people occasionally claim there aren't any such shops in DC. But there are, it's just that the sandwiches are priced at $10-14, so people don't think of them th…

1. High throughput

2. There is definitely some level of small-scale tax evasion/paying under the table in NYC. Grey market is a lot bigger, some places will not charge tax if you pay cash.

3. Small square footage. Most deli counter setups I've seen in New York, there's basically enough room for a person to swivel between a counter and a grill, and that's about it. Less square footage means less space to pay rent on. There's almost certainly no seating so you save even more.

4. Most places like this will probably make most of the margin on drinks and snacks that are also prominently displayed, most delis also sell lotto tickets, smokes, etc. I will say that I didn't have the healthiest snacking habits before moving out of New York.

This is all anecdotal growing up in New York in the '00s. Things have certainly changed since then, in some neighborhoods the deli is an endangered species due to increasing rents. And they have never been everywhere; a deli could not afford the rent on 5th Av next to Bergdorf Goodman.

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