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Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

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131–140 of 164 posts

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#131
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there good parts? Then again this forum is for those doing the gentrifying. So maybe it is wrong place to ask...

Depends on if you are a part of the crime rates that go down or not. More seriously: lower crime, more services, reduced infastructural and service strain, higher income, and an area made more desirable. The very hard part would be getting only the good, to bring in investment and raise incomes of individuals across all individuals at a neighborhood level instead of just importing richer people. The levels of sudden…

"Importing richer people" is just one part of it, you're also freeing up housing elsewhere which allows greater upward mobility there. Their income also brings more opportunity with them.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, it is natural that those businesses go under.

Over optimized corps are usually going down sooner or later. Look at Bell or at the living corpses of IBM, Oracle and Boeing. The problem is they are getting propped up by governments around the globe and their fear of impeding doom if their old supplier shits the bed.

Lol - replaced by even bigger megacorps. Google, Microsoft, Nvidia.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seems weird is that with the massive number of Starbucks closures I've seen smaller indies and local chains open up in the exact same locations and somehow make a go of it- how does that work?

Naively, a small shop only needs to pay on-the-ground workers and direct owners who may be a subset of the first group. Starbucks has to pay the regional managers and their bosses and the shareholders, etc. Also, at the mom-and-pop, no one is screaming “Why is the fourth derivative of profit increase not higher??”

I think that is, indeed, rather naive. Starbucks has an extremely efficient supply chain which ensures its raw ingredient costs are lower than what the small shop can negotiate, even moreso when delivery to the store is factored in. After raw wages, it can also offer health insurance and benefits to its employees at significantly lower per-employee costs than the small shop. It can often get a better deal on real estate, because landlords know that Starbucks adds prestige and enables them to raise rents on surrounding units. And of course, while mom & pop have to spend money advertising to the neighborhood with flyers, direct mail, coupons, etc, the Starbucks just posts that green mermaid logo and lots of people flock to it (and often are willing to pay more for the product).

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#134

“third place” is just starbucks marketing jargon. this article is an ad.

Maybe at some point it was, but we are well past sbux owning the term. You can see for yourself, do a google search for "third place -starbucks" and filter down to results in the last 24 hours. You will still find news articles, reddit threads, etc, using the very same definition we are using here. I've seen articles in strong town use it, I've heard the term come up in meetings of my local pro-development citizen's…

The third place is from 1989 book, The Great Good Place. Starbucks looks to have adopted it a while ago, at least 2008. But I have only heard it used by urbanists.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#135
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actively. You can however consider it when choosing a location (although obviously, the mobile network providers can make changes outside your control which might change your 'USP').

can always cover the walls and make it a Faraday cage?

Not legally.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#136

Wait, aren't third places public places? Like, squares or parks? I thought commercial establishments were second places.

A generation of Americans have no idea what the commons is.

Three generations, at least.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#137
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations were originally for some public benefit. It’s only recently that profit has become their sole aim.

When were corporations for public benefit? Even medieval corporations were for the benefit of the participants, and only tangentially the public at large.

Benefit of the granting authority.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#138
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can always cover the walls and make it a Faraday cage?

Not legally.

We love the look of those tin ceiling tiles so much we covered our walls with them too!

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#139
post #129
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're meant to serve no public benefit then perhaps they should be stripped of the legal protections they enjoy.

What kind of legal protections do you think should go? BTW, say, your bedroom serves no public benefit; its point is to provide you some highly private benefits. Is it bad? I'd say that any activity is fine, as long as it does not result in or intended for public harm. Providing a public benefit should be strictly optional; paying taxes should be enough.

Then why are we giving the owners limited liability? In exchange for what?

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#140
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If commercial real estate is cheap enough, an efficient business chain absolutely can do well with a cozy shop. A lot of people don't want a kiosk, and will simply skip it, but will go to a place if it's a cozy shop. Maybe this isn't so popular in modern America these days, but it is in many other places. Here in Tokyo where land prices are huge, all the Starbucks I've seen are still cozy shops, though they do tend t…

>If commercial real estate is cheap enough, Yea, this is one of the primary problems. Commercial real estate prices are out of control, same with housing.

Seems like work from home should eventually make a dent in commercial prices.
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