11–20 of 79 posts
I _love_ Strong Towns but I want to push back against this article. Strong Towns is a leading voice on YIMBY, but this is reminiscent of the common arguments I hear from NIMBY folks..."they shouldn't be allowed to build here because ____" is definitionally NIMBY. While I don't love Dollar General or shop there very often, I have a hard time understanding why it's a "swindle." The reason people shop there is because t…
The tension this article writes about can be expressed to a tech audience as a compression problem. Dollar General wins out on low prices - essentially compressing their value prop onto a single dimension, prices. They won't do the Strong Towns things like sponsor a park or thoughtfully curate what they sell to fit community needs. There's no button to press in a DG that says "sell more eggplants please". The value o…
Yes, there is. They absolutely manage stock based on demand, as does every other chain store.
> We don't want a corporate, faceless box store coming in with no stake in our community. Who is “we?” If the community wants Washington General, then they’ll shop there. If they want the lowest possible prices, they’ll shop at Dollar General. What it sounds like is that Washington General wants effectively a tariff on Dollar General so people won’t shop there. Because if it’s strictly “what’s best for the community,…
Strong towns (who made the article) is a grassroots nonprofit that finds concrete ways for US cities to curb the effects of urban sprawl. One of those ways is to acknowledge that inviting huge commercial ventures into your small local economy is like bringing a giant mammal to roam free on a small island nation. It's probably going to affect the ecosystem in ways that don't suit the environment.
I _love_ Strong Towns but I want to push back against this article. Strong Towns is a leading voice on YIMBY, but this is reminiscent of the common arguments I hear from NIMBY folks..."they shouldn't be allowed to build here because ____" is definitionally NIMBY. While I don't love Dollar General or shop there very often, I have a hard time understanding why it's a "swindle." The reason people shop there is because t…
I've come to the realization that strong towns are basically just moderate NIMBYs.
On a scale from 65yo California suburbanite to Ron Paul they're basically the suburbanite but they're but they're self aware enough to realize if they push too far, ask too much, destroy too much wealth, that they'll bring the whole house of cards crashing down.
Ultimately I think it's best to just shitcan all pretense of local zoning, let the states regulate the stuff they do (i.e. hazmat processing and junkyards and the other truly unsightly things that NIMBYs always pretend they are the only line of defense from) and let the developers and the businesses and residents deal with the opportunities and the fallout that arises. Sure, there will be some losers but everyone will lose a heck of a lot less than they do with the status quo wherein only big interests can actually do much of anything.
Don't get me started at the local groceries which were associated with the large employer in town, a giant grocery wholesaler. I definitely want to support my neighbors, but I don't want to buy Local Brand Ketchup. I want Heinz, darnit.
I _love_ Strong Towns but I want to push back against this article. Strong Towns is a leading voice on YIMBY, but this is reminiscent of the common arguments I hear from NIMBY folks..."they shouldn't be allowed to build here because ____" is definitionally NIMBY. While I don't love Dollar General or shop there very often, I have a hard time understanding why it's a "swindle." The reason people shop there is because t…
Next time I'm in there I'll check the unit price on those. I'm betting it's pretty bad, because usually if a business is doing anything distinctive like that, it's to screw people.
The tension this article writes about can be expressed to a tech audience as a compression problem. Dollar General wins out on low prices - essentially compressing their value prop onto a single dimension, prices. They won't do the Strong Towns things like sponsor a park or thoughtfully curate what they sell to fit community needs. There's no button to press in a DG that says "sell more eggplants please". The value o…
> There's no button to press in a DG that says "sell more eggplants please". Yes, there is. They absolutely manage stock based on demand, as does every other chain store.
The tension this article writes about can be expressed to a tech audience as a compression problem. Dollar General wins out on low prices - essentially compressing their value prop onto a single dimension, prices. They won't do the Strong Towns things like sponsor a park or thoughtfully curate what they sell to fit community needs. There's no button to press in a DG that says "sell more eggplants please". The value o…
> There's no button to press in a DG that says "sell more eggplants please". Yes, there is. They absolutely manage stock based on demand, as does every other chain store.
They "manage stock on demand" in that they count SKUs sold and replenish as needed / as they have availability, sure. And they probably do a inventory / count day once in a while, to account for loss(shrink). But that's about it.
They might occasionally get to pick from a few custom options from the internal catalog, but they likely aren't doing any kind of active stock management, and store staff (even store managers) likely have close-to-zero direct influence over what is carried.
> We don't want a corporate, faceless box store coming in with no stake in our community. Who is “we?” If the community wants Washington General, then they’ll shop there. If they want the lowest possible prices, they’ll shop at Dollar General. What it sounds like is that Washington General wants effectively a tariff on Dollar General so people won’t shop there. Because if it’s strictly “what’s best for the community,…
Dollar General is a mega corporation that can operate on an entirely different level than local stores. They pay their workers less and the profits go out of state. On a store-by-store basis though, Dollar general is a fragile establishment, management will not hesitate to abandon the location if they are spending too much money propping up the store. And the overhead for these stores is higher than it needs to be -…