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America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

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Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#171

Post by fzeroracer »

topspin wrote: post #159
fzeroracer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, and it's one of the things our new mayor is working towards (imposing a vacancy tax).

> imposing a vacancy tax That might help a little, but you won't notice. Beating such taxes is done with low value businesses. A mattress store is a typical case, good for holding larger spaces with almost no capital cost: a low overhead business used to hold a retail property until values appreciate. Smaller spaces are held with little clothing stores nobody shops at, or wire transfer shops and such. There is a plet…

I don't disagree, but even a low overhead business is still going to be better than an empty storefront (since it means creating some business and employment than none) and a reasonable % of said vacant businesses will be turned into decent value for the community. It's something especially apparent because even the local mattress stores have closed and left said space vacant.

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#172

Post by 627467 »

quacker wrote: post #170

This needs more detailed data that normalizes for the amount of food (price per calorie or price per weight or something like that). Yes, a bowl at chipotle in the US might be 2x the price (more, probably) of a Japanese bowl, but it matters if I am getting 2x the calories also. And there are foods in the US that are technically as cost effective, although maybe not as nutritious, like pizza which they mention, that c…

> In Japan, workers rely on healthy lunch bowls for under $4

The title doesn't capture that, but the issue is not that the US can't produce $4 lunches. It's it can't enable cheap(er) healthy lunches

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#173

Post by pessimizer »

systemtest wrote: post #77
KptMarchewa wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. That's by design.

It's by design that only people with stable housing can vote? I bet you loved pre-1965 America.

Whatever idea you have about how black Americans live is bizarre. And despite being ignorant of us, you attempt to silence discussions by acting like you are us.

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#174

Post by Spooky23 »

systemtest wrote: post #22
milkytron wrote: post #15

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?

There’s a lot you can do. Voting is the entry stake. You can make a big impact with a very low level of political engagement.

Allowing popular referendum for everything just invites a particular and usually really dumb level of politics. You can influence a board’s decision and get some or all of what you want.

IMO one of the biggest problems with society is that you have this view that politics is this idea that it’s some sort of magical thing that is done to you. I can get my city councilman on the phone easily. Probably would get a meeting with my state senator in a few days if need be. Just show up and work with people.

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#175

Post by ensemblehq »

criddell wrote: post #10

It probably isn't as simple as the writer thinks. Houston, for example, has no zoning laws and no $4 lunch bowls.

What’s missing from the writer’s analysis is also the desire from the population to create such businesses. Having lived in Asia for a bit, most of these small businesses are not wildly profitable and not everyone is willing to put in the hard work and effort to running these affordable restaurants.

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#176

Post by eschulz »

I'm probably the only person here who has been in a Walmart in the last year or two, but recently I found that my local Walmart offers a warm counter with freshly prepared small bites, and you can get a respectable chicken sandwich for $2. It's a decent small meal, and the same item would probably be $6-$12 at a fast foot joint. I guess each individual Walmart is big enough to offer these bites to their shoppers.

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#177

Post by t-3 »

thrance wrote: post #95

Restaurants will charge what people are able to pay. My office is on the third floor of a century-old parisian building, in the heart of the city. The street is filled with tiny restaurants, some of which serve these "healthy lunch bowls" that the US apparently lacks. Except they're 14€ here (without drinks or desserts), because people have the money to pay for it, and do so. You can relax zoning laws, but no one wil…

I used to be able to get $3 breakfast and $5 lunch (ok, tipping rounds those up, but the base price is there) at nearly any Coney Island in the Detroit metro. It's not about richness or zoning, it's all about population density and disposable income. People in the US are poorer than we used to be, so restaurants only target the rich. US cities are remarkably fluffy and often less dense than suburbs in other countries. It's that simple.

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#178

Post by FeloniousHam »

dv_dt wrote: post #58
milkytron wrote: post #15

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

When in American history have we had more free time for civic participation?

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#179

Post by blacksmith_tb »

verisimi wrote: post #157
milkytron wrote: post #15

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…

> most have rose tinted glasses of better economic times from the past, and want to recreate the past instead of learning from it and using it to make the future better for future residents and businesses So the voters are wrong? You know what's "better" for them, right? Whether they want it or not, right? > we need to figure out how to get young people engaged locally Because they are more in line with what you thin…

Not the OP, but I took their implication to be that 5% of the electorate decided the direction future development would take (or not take).

Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

#180

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

vel0city wrote: post #152
floatrock wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about not meeting the standards of the town's health department, it's about having a 1-size-fits-all health standards. 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…

Can you be more specific on exactly what kind of cross-contamination standards make it impossible for a small eatery to exist? Do you have any specific rules in mind? Its been a while since I went through a food safety course, but I don't really recall any that would make it impossible for a small shop to achieve. I follow most of the rules I learned in my own kitchen at home. Stuff like don't use the same cutting bo…

Cross contamination standards can't make it impossible for a small eatery to exist, and without standards enforcement businesses will absolutely go full The Jungle. Unfortunately, I could believe that paperwork around cross contamination standards could get there- a chain can spread the cost of the laywering to get paperwork right over hundreds of establishments, and learn it progressively as it gets worse, a single establishment has to do all the paperwork themselves up front.
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