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Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

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Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#151
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally just capitalism. This is the point of the economic system. Why are people surprised? Is the propaganda just that good?

It's literally just regulatory capture. It has nothing to do with capitalism. In a truly capitalistic economy, there would be no regulations preventing competitors from coming in and creating competition. The propaganda doesn't have to be good when nobody understands what is and isn't capitalism anyways.

But what's being described here (ie the land use covenants) is not regulation, it's contractual restraint.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal An easier solution is mandatory sunsets after a period of time. Because the flip side of making them illegal is you'll have a lot more land with conservation easements being exploited for resources.

The restriction already sunsets. Read the article it says 2038

Wow great, the previous owner is telling you what to do for only 16 more years.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#153
post #12

>In Mammoth Lakes, there are two old K-Mart lots that could easily welcome competitive grocery stores This sounds like Bishop, not Mammoth. Bishop is 30 minutes outside of Mammoth and is a little bit bigger. Mammoth does have two grocery stores now, for years it was just a Vons and now there is a Grocery Outlet as well. Bishop has a Vons, Grocery Outlet, and a Smart and Final. Both cities have some hispanic grocers t…

> Both cities have some hispanic grocers One thing I have noticed after moving to the US is that white Americans are terrified of going to ethnic grocers, it's pretty fascinating

never seen that. Lots of variety of grocery stores in SoCal, large variety of people in them. (hate the word "ethnic" though as it's "othering").

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#154

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves. One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as…

> These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal An easier solution is mandatory sunsets after a period of time. Because the flip side of making them illegal is you'll have a lot more land with conservation easements being exploited for resources.

JumpCrisscross, what do you think of the suggestion elsewhere in this thread[1] to tax the value of that restrictive covenant/easement?

Only saw that idea just now and it seems interesting enough to investigate further. I'm not a tax guy though so don't know if I'm missing something obvious.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42046657

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unrestricted in this sense means that both parties are able to deploy their capital as they choose, and specifically without outside requirements. In this case someone took a piece of capital (land), and traded most of the rights, but not all to someone else. The buyer took the deal knowing that they hadn't purchased unrestricted use of that land, but instead a limited use of the land. Both parties agreed to the deal…

That is interesting; I can see it from that perspective. I suppose when I read "unrestricted competition," I infer it to mean that any contractual agreement created for the purpose of limiting competition would be regulated to maintain the free market. I'm under the impression that this is the reason for most of the anti-monopoly regulation that currently exists. Outside of regulation of anti-monopolistic regulations…

Free markets don't necessarily lead to the best outcome, and certainly not to the best outcome for a society.

If you go read the actual invisible hand quote from Adam Smith, that so many people are fond of quoting, he is pointing out that the free-market leads to unintended outcomes and side-effects:

"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

His argument is basically that sometimes merchants accidentally do things that benefit society. The unstated opposite is the issue.

The concept of free-markets is nebulous, and thus more of a political football than a serious thing. Every culture has limits on what it will allow of the market, and what is considered not allowed. A monopoly that harms the consumer is not allowed, but we do allow monopolies in circumstances where it would be massively inefficient not to operate as a monopoly (utilities is the most common one, e.g. only one company is allowed to own power lines in your neighborhood).

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#156

In this case, I suppose the “invisible hand” operates by making Mammoth a less desirable place to live, causing them to lose tourism and residents to places with stronger competition.

If Mammoth is your home, your concerns extend beyond those of an economic commodity.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#157

It's funny to see Matt Stoller complain about land use restrictions here, as he refuses to acknowledge the problem for residential building: https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1824155610201432264 If apartment buildings are banned in 96% of residential land in California, with most of the 4% already built up with apartments, isn't that pretty similar to the commercial land use situation in Mammoth, CA?

the difference is that in residential land use, the local residents are deciding themselves; with commercial land use, one company is deciding for the local residents if the residents of one town were deciding that no housing could be built in another town, that would be closer to the commercial land use case made here

Is it that different though? Local residents seem to be deciding what kind of housing can be built on land that isn't theirs.

I can't build a fourplex on my lot, despite having the room for it, because people living elsewhere deemed it so. Instead it's a SFH with most of the lot wasted as setbacks, and is worth more than it should because of it.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#158
post #46

While holding a lease on prime competitor real estate seemingly strictly for the purpose of stopping competition from moving in feels very, very scummy; it also feels like it isn't the whole story. Competitors don't need to move in to the vacant K-mart. There are always other options; those "other options" is how 99% of grocery stores get opened, Walmarts don't "move in" to old K-marts by-and-large. Is the local gove…

From the OP:

"Land use restrictions are common in the supermarket industry, because it costs about $10 million and requires a good plot of land to open a new store. It’s much easier to open a store in a building already suitable for a grocery store than to build something from scratch."

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#159

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves. One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as…

> These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal An easier solution is mandatory sunsets after a period of time. Because the flip side of making them illegal is you'll have a lot more land with conservation easements being exploited for resources.

This kind of reminds me of when airspace was separated from Land property rights. There doesn't necessarily need to be any underlying logic or consistency, so a very tailored legal interpretation could be formed in theory.

That said, I think I'm much more practical solution is to focus on the buyer's rights and non-competitive behavior then limiting sellers rights. It makes intuitive sense that people would be able to option or sell indefinite use rights if they own the thing itself. It is less intuitive that individuals have a right to aggregate such options for Monopoly.

Now that I think about it, it seems there could be some comparison to the corner crossing cases that are being litigated too

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The restriction already sunsets. Read the article it says 2038

Wow great, the previous owner is telling you what to do for only 16 more years.

Don't you mean the contract you signed is telling you what to do for 16 more years?
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