81–90 of 322 posts
No one sells $4 lunch bowls in the US because no one wants to work for minimum wage for 12 hours a day. The article makes it seem like a great idea, but people in Japan who run these stores work like dogs and live in poverty for their whole lives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you not register to vote or something?
I've lived in various European cities where I was not able to vote for various reasons. Such as living hotel long-term, living in a holiday home, being semi-homeless, sub-letting, crashing on someones couch. Seasonal workers, migrant workers or people with unstable employment are typically in this situation. No, I was not able to vote.
I serve as a planning commissioner for my city, and my city just recently tried to overhaul our zoning code to allow for more affordability and better economic outcomes for our citizens and future as a city. Here is what I have learned: In the US, few people participate or care about local laws, zoning, and elections, or even understand why participation may be important. In a citizen ballot to determine if we should…
Protests come when people are pushed into a corner with little other choice. Participation is more prevalent when people have free time in their lives. Our economics has systematically squeezed free time out in favor of more work to most of our workforce, and particularly hard for young people. One reason so many local city policies favor the old, is that they're retired and have the time to participate
I serve as a planning commissioner for my city, and my city just recently tried to overhaul our zoning code to allow for more affordability and better economic outcomes for our citizens and future as a city. Here is what I have learned: In the US, few people participate or care about local laws, zoning, and elections, or even understand why participation may be important. In a citizen ballot to determine if we should…
A good start would be to allow everyone living in the city to vote. I don't care about politics, zoning or planning if I am not allowed to vote or participate. There isn't anything I can do, so why bother putting effort into it?
This is missing the forest for the trees a bit. Our zoning laws do prevent lower footprint businesses, but in reality the problem is less zoning laws and more landlords and rent. If you compare city to city (ignoring other societal issues), cities in Japan have a far lower vacancy rate compared to cities across America. In Seattle I've seen a ton of smaller spaces become vacant and stay vacant for years because landl…
That's not how commercial real estate works.
So you, the property owner, end up in a situation where if you lower rent to attract a new tenant, the bank will recalculate your loan, potentially ending in a margin call.
Because you are a heavily leveraged house of cards, a rug pull on a few of these loans could cause a cascade liquidating your commercial inventory. Your business is buy a property, take a loan against it, use that loan to buy a property, etc etc.
Therefore it becomes worth it to carry vacant properties, because they are acting as the stilts holding up your money making properties. The vacancy becomes a cost of doing business, and gets factored into the rent of places that are getting leased.
The current location my office is in, was vacant for 12 years before we signed a lease, owned by a big name commercial real estate firm.
Pay Japanese salaries, get Japanese prices [0]. That $4 kombini bento feels like a $13 burrito or Cava bowl when on a Japanese salary. Japan only appears cheap if you earn in USD, GBP, and Euros. For most Japanese households, costs have risen higher than salaries [1][2] and they are now facing inflation due to tourist spending [7][8][9]. It also doesn't help that the median household income in Japan is around $25,000…
> Japan’s minimum wage ($6.68 an hour) is similar to America’s ($7.25).
I serve as a planning commissioner for my city, and my city just recently tried to overhaul our zoning code to allow for more affordability and better economic outcomes for our citizens and future as a city. Here is what I have learned: In the US, few people participate or care about local laws, zoning, and elections, or even understand why participation may be important. In a citizen ballot to determine if we should…
This sort of citizen engagement is cute, naïve and ultimately pointless. Where I live in the US the major landowner(s) and local billionaire(s) ultimately controls these things. I’m not being sarcastic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a snowball effect with zoning. I specifically sought out a place zoned with no building code checks and hardly any zoning. I value my right to die in a fire a lot more than I value my right to have the jack-boot enter my own property and tell me he knows best. People like me go to places with fairly free zoning. The jack boot lickers go to places with restricted zoning. Once one has a majority it jus…
I can't imagine I'd ever want to buy a house from someone who makes a point to live someplace where they can install sub-par plumbing and wiring, that this lack of code compliance was the selling point of where to build. Imagine buying a meal from a restaurant which prides themselves by not meeting the standards of the nearby town's health department.
If you make a 5-seat japaneese-style neighborhood micro-eatery conform to the same cross-contamination standards as a 800-people-per-hour mcdonalds, you're making one of these unprofitable and de-facto illegal.
Yes, lets have health codes. But lets also recognize different risk profiles and encourage all sorts of entrepreneurship. If it's 1-size-fits-all, then the only size is going to be XXL.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've lived in various European cities where I was not able to vote for various reasons. Such as living hotel long-term, living in a holiday home, being semi-homeless, sub-letting, crashing on someones couch. Seasonal workers, migrant workers or people with unstable employment are typically in this situation. No, I was not able to vote.
I get the sentiment about "why would I let people who aren't going to stay long term decide how the city is run?" but in the end it creates a city that is indifferent or even hostile to people in that situation. It ends up disenfranchising a population that will always be there, even if the people who make up that population is constantly changing.
Don't complain about people not being engaged with local politics if you don't allow them to vote.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true. The UK has a £3.85 meal deal that is a sandwich + a snack + a drink. It's hugely popular. Germany has the Döner Kebab, it's now about 5-9€, but the have cheaper options available too. Again, hugely popular. I'm sure most European cities have these.
A sandwich, snack or Döner Kebab is not a full nutritional lunch.