Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this in the US or some other country?
Alcoholics hanging around liquor stores is a universal.
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Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
401–410 of 427 posts
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neighbours reported seeing them carrying new cabinets in? Something like this actually happened to a former colleague of mine. They installed a safety rail on their front porch. Someone complained.
That’s at least outdoors
True, but children can run much faster than a permitting process.
Maybe in the cabinetry case there was a giant van with a company logo parked out front.
Either way, permits shouldn't be required for non-disruptive (and a van being in someone's driveway is not disruptive), non-structural changes to a house.
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, these businesses don't need walls or public restrooms. If the floor is concrete, CVT, carpet, or whatever they still just roll out some padded mats. No one cares what the ceiling looks like or if the heat works. No remodeling required to get their tenancy started, and none required to replace them with a more lucrative business. Landlords are not afraid to sign up such tenants even if the rent they'll pay is lo…
The stoa was the ancient greek strip mall, and I suppose doing philosophy involves little to no remodelling. I can imagine the early stoics putting up resiliently with the misfortune of being moved on from each venue every time a better-paying tenant came along... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23767947
Haha that's a funny image. I can't imagine that freelance philosophy pays much better now, so from now on I'll consider a professional philosopher to be another "death tenant"...
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tangentially related, but a colleague just got their replacement of kitchen cabinets shut down by the local government for not having a permit. It’s baffling to me that the government requires that you get permission to do significant modification to the inside of your own home, especially for non structural work.
What the heck? How would they even know? Neighbours reported seeing them carrying new cabinets in? The store reported it to the government? That's just weird.
He gave the old cabinets away on Craigslist. Must’ve seen the posting and cross checked it against permits.
I’m aware that zoning and permitting laws have been an issue for a while (like a lot of Millenials I haven’t been able to afford to buy a home), but it does feel a bit authoritarian for the local permitting office to look for signs of “black market” modifications to one’s own property.
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tangentially related, but a colleague just got their replacement of kitchen cabinets shut down by the local government for not having a permit. It’s baffling to me that the government requires that you get permission to do significant modification to the inside of your own home, especially for non structural work.
Where did that happen?
West LA, but after relaying this story to my family in the midwest I found out that my sister in law had to get permits to replace internal drywall. It seems like lots of local governments think they should have their nose in how one modifies one’s own property.
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did that happen?
West LA, but after relaying this story to my family in the midwest I found out that my sister in law had to get permits to replace internal drywall. It seems like lots of local governments think they should have their nose in how one modifies one’s own property.
Welcome to home ownership. Location everywhere.
Most places like not places like Oakland, Berkeley and Santa Cruz County, this sort of thing depends on the neighbors. It's inane what neighbors will go running to the city for. Or not. Friend of mine in the east bay completely gutted and remodeled his house no problem. In San Jose neighbors complained to the city about a disused dishwasher in my garage.
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
The housewives aspect of it is a strange thing to focus on - this is a relic of a time when most people did not drive, i.e. this style of living was natural to everyone, housewife or no, prior to Eisenhower-era financial incentives to build highways everywhere[1], and especially in areas of "urban blight," which, of course, were also usually the densest parts of neighborhoods/cities since the poor did not have cars.…
Berwyn and Cicero weren't directly impacted by the Eisenhower (although Oak Park was—something that the local populace still resents which is evidenced by the fact that the exits for the Ike (much to my wife's confusion, I-290 goes by multiple names) exist only on the borders of the village and are the only left-side exits for the entirety of the Congress Expressway's (like I said...) run). More impactful was perhaps…
I see these little carts around San Francisco all the time! Especially used by a lot of people in Chinatown, and also by a lot of older people, but today I even saw a young lady using one!
Thank you for your input about the streetcars, Berwyn and Cicero, and Oak Park. I fell in love with Chicago during my time there and always enjoy getting to know more of its history. It is a powerful city (and I hope to maybe move back to it in a few years, pending my career alignment).
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
I grew up in South Florida and when I visit my parents, they are horrified when I insist on walking the quarter mile to the Starbucks in the corner. It's definitely a part of the culture here.
You're lucky you have retail that close. Many US residential neighborhoods are planned in such a way that you can't buy a can of coke within a mile of where people sleep.
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#409When 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.
Btw. the US is probably more of an exception when it comes to children being driven to school. Swiss kids tend to walk themselves from age 5 to 6 upward, schools are usually within 30min of a child's walk. But Japan is certainly special thanks to very liberal zoning laws. Even in rural areas it's common to find warehouses and small shops right next to or beneath homes. Europe's laws are somewhere between Japan and the US, and so is the walkability. Turns out, just allowing humans to try things will make markets solve this issue.
Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that people underestimate the generational effects of the FHA loans being locked to suburbanized white neighborhoods. The rise of the automobile combined with the post-war FHA loan restrictions allowed one group of people to 'invest' in their homes and land, while excluding (mostly) another group. Check out https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history... for an overview of 'The Color of Law' m…
Thanks for linking this summary! This is by far the most controversial comment I've ever made here, it keeps on fluctuating in score. I hope it prompts some people to examine the history, but unfortunately I did not provide any scholarship to back up my views, which are heterodox in the general population but I think commonly held by those who investigate the boring subject of zoning. Some other sources of how system…
Thank you for this. As an outsider it made me realize how much there is behind the claim of the echoes of racism still being felt today in the US. What a terrible disservice these people did to the future...
I share your view that we're seeing a large scale decline of the American empire btw. - Covid response lays this out quite clearly. It will remain to be seen whether it drags down Europe as well.