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My region has a new largests shopping centre, it's a huge sort of outdoor-trying-to-be-main-street sort of thing with a giant maze of a hosed up underground parkade under and on top of the whole thing. It's surrounded by a moat of brutally pedestrian-unfriendly highways and stroads and all the buildings turn their "backs" to the outside community, only facing inwards. The anchor is a huge 2 story wallmart and they just expanded to the left and built a huge whole-foods on top of 4 levels of parking. There's also some large offices and a big call center in some of the upper floor offices. It's basically a bunch of strip malls and disney-land main streets stacked on top of each other. It's very popular. Of course, because it's a mall, that means only chains. We have 2 other large old malls that have been both expanding and doing very well. One used to have a lot of local stores in them, very popular and beloved stores that were draws for the mall. New owners took over and decided "chains only" and kicked most all the unique stores out. I only willingly go into a mall maybe once a year and I find them super depressing. But I also do almost no online shopping. I guess I just don't buy things?? I buy groceries because I need to eat, I buy clothes but those last years. I have the furniture and kitchen equipment I need, that can last decades. How is the shop that sells greeting cards and calendars so busy all the time? Why are there 2 busy shops that sell nothing but phone cases? You buy a calendar once a year, you buy a phone case every 3-4 years as you get a new phone. How are the malls so crowded? How are people shopping so often? Where are they putting all the stuff they're constantly buying? Do people just go multiple times a week to browse but not buy things? I feel like I have retail-autism because none of it computes. Anyways, malls are absolutely booming in my neck of the woods while downtown retail continues to struggle while also being its own worst enemy by protesting pedestrian improvements and bike lanes and crying that the city doesn't demolish half the buildings downtown to provide *free parking* and turn it into a strip mall. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Jun 13, 2017 |
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Jun 13, 2017 21:04
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fishmech posted:You're forgetting how there's a couple hundred thousand other people around? Hundreds of thousands of people only shopping a few times a year adds up pretty quickly, deceptively so even. Add in a decent amount of weirdos who are buying a lot of whatever item category it is to increase the business of each individual store, it all adds together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a whole spectrum from people who shop once a week to a once a year and multiply that by nearly half a million and bam, there's your mall crowds. I think that depresses me most about the crowds in malls is that in a better planned city all these people could be foot traffic in a proper "high street" urban or village shopping area rather than a claustrophobic sterile mall. Shopping should look like this  Individual buildings with a large number of separate owners housing a large number of shops. No single owner of the entire space and true democratic public spaces managed by the community rather than a single private company. Also mixed with non-shopping cultural and community activities, parks, public services. You know, an actual community. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jun 13, 2017 |
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Jun 13, 2017 21:37
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:The thing about Actual Cities is shopping isn't inconvenient, because your homes are above the stores, not 20 miles away in a bedroom community filled with SUVs. This is why I like shopping in a proper "actual city" because it becomes a relaxing social experience. The walk between the stores is the fun part, being outdoors, running into people I know, interacting with other humans, looking at pretty buildings, looking at pretty views, just generally seeing things and my senses being stimulated. In a fully enclosed mall everything looks the same, everything is tightly controlled, no windows, everyone is there just to shop. It feels like a stifling oppressive environment and all I want to do is run and escape. In fact when I know my mall shopping is done and I'm trying to get out I almost have a feeling of panic as I try to find the way out because it all looks the same, all the shops are the same, there's no landmarks, no sun or mountains or sea to orient yourself. Then we you do get out you're greeted by a new hell, the mall parking lot. In the city, shopping is just incidental to enjoying your time walking around. It's a place I want to be that also happens to have shops I can buy things at but I'm quite happy to be there even if shopping is not on the agenda. My wife works at a huge suburban strip mall in a neighbouring city and it's horrible. People actually do drive from store to store. All the sidewalks are actually really narrow and all the signage is huge and facing the parking lot but can't be seen from the sidewalk so it's impossible to navigate by foot. A lot of these new strip malls that plant some trees in the parking lots and call them selves lifestyle centres are like this. They even sort of try to ape a proper pedestrian environment but still fail due to all the little things, like signs you can read on foot vs from the parking lot. But in terms of the death of retail, I really do try to support local business but so many don't make it easy. Their price will be literally twice as much as online, they'll pay their entirely part-time staff that they constantly mistreat minimum wage then write letters to the editor about how we need to relax all these business-killing labour laws, and then they'll form an alliance of uninformed reactionary small business owners to protest the new bike lanes or sidewalk improvements. Most of the poo poo I buy isn't poo poo you need to be able to see in person, it's like electronic parts or scale model poo poo. Local economies are super important, but gently caress most small business owners. They'll plaster their "support the community, shop local!!" stickers on their window then give nothing back while whining about having to treat their staff properly or pay their taxes.
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Jun 13, 2017 23:33
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A big problem with the US (or north american in general) retail situation is that the US has about 6x the per capita retail space compared to say europe. When your retail space is part of a pedestrianized high street with great transit access and integrated into the urban fabric of your town or city and part of every day life I think it's much easier for those places to survive than some mall out in the middle of nowhere that generally only lasts until it's no longer shiny and new. The US has far too much retail space, and that retail space is often very inflexible and temporary. It's very "course grained" development, which is generally inflexible by nature. Walkable areas with high granularity are able to respond to changes better (when they aren't stifled by zoning). Less detail demand? Ok the ground floor retail are now town-houses. More retail demand? The ground floors are retail again. But either way, the buildings are being used and generating wealth for the area. A huge mall that's lost its anchors is hosed quickly becomes a blight. Here's a little article on "granularity" in cities and how it's important for local economies and the ability for local retail to survive. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/10/21/granularity
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Jun 14, 2017 00:26
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Peachfart posted:Tiny Brontosaurus must have a brain like in Inside Out, except she just has five Angry emotions. She's usually fine and right about stuff but gets mad about the internet way way too easily She earns the forums a lot of money, the custom avatar retail game is BOOMING.
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Jun 14, 2017 02:23
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Good staff make all the difference for me. There's a department store I go to for most of my clothes shopping because the head of the men's department is this very, well, he's an extremely fussy grumpy middle aged dude with strong opinions on clothing (and everything) and he makes shopping a treat and I know I can trust his advice, both on how things fit and if they are good deals and when sales are coming up. He knows his poo poo so it makes shopping easy and fun. If he isn't working that day or is busy helping other people, I just keep walking and try again another day. The unhelpful or just not very knowledgeable staff at so many other shops are worthless, even worse is when they give you attitude. These are usually minimum wage part time teens so I hardly blame them for not being invested in their jobs. I like retail when you can find experts there. Sure the electronics supplier costs 5x as much as ordering parts from china online, but I get them instantly and can talk to a real human who knows his poo poo and give me advise. Invest in good staff who give a poo poo and you can retain them long enough that they can become experts at what ever it is you sell, high turnover part time kids aren't worth the savings.
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Jun 14, 2017 23:48
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In Canada all the big grocery chains have been merging but keeping their branding. So it will look like your town has like 7 different supermarket chains but there's 2 owners. Then again that's just the end-game of any capitalist system.
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Jun 16, 2017 17:16
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Peachfart posted:Whole Foods is overpriced garbage from a company that hypes GMO fears so maybe the Amazon acquisition will help things. Yeah the founder/owner even said in some interviews he totally doesn't buy into "organic" or "GMO Free" but idiot yuppies and hippies eat that poo poo up and make him rich so lollll
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Jun 16, 2017 18:11
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Haha holy poo poo Amazon "Amazon granted a patent that prevents in-store shoppers from online price checking" https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15812986/amazon-patent-online-price-checking
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Jun 16, 2017 20:15
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The self checkout at my local supermarket is always super speedy. All the olds who can't figure it out or normal people with a lot of produce go to the humans, people with just a few things they can quick scan go to the automated ones. For the 4 automated tills there's usually a single staff member sort of overseeing them and overriding things as needed. It goes fast.
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Jun 19, 2017 18:18
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I stole a muffin from BC Ferries, it wasn't theft it was political protest at their prices though. The muffin was organic. I think it's the only physical item I've ever stolen in my entire life 
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Jun 19, 2017 21:59
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dont even fink about it posted:Most theft (by a vast margin) is by employees. Actually most theft is by capital from its employees  If you aren't stealing from your boss you're stealing from your family.
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Jun 19, 2017 22:11
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Gold fringed bar codes
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Jun 20, 2017 01:16
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My friend lives right in NYC and is a lawyer making good six figures and his rent is like $1300. He's paying less rent than me in a small canadian town but making like 5x as much money. Big cities are great if you have a profession that can take advantage of the high wages there. My friend who was working retail in his small town only to move to Toronto because "more opportunities" and worked retail there for the same money but like double the cost of living is crazy though. Go where you can get the best job and best quality of life. For some people that's a smaller town, for others they need to be somewhere like London or NY. Also suburban houses are only cheap due to massive subsidies and tax breaks, directly or indirectly paid for by the cities.
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Jun 21, 2017 18:06
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Lote posted:Your friend has 3 roommates, is living in a rent controlled building from the 70s in his grandmothers name, is living in a room smaller than most walk in closets, or is lying. He's in a pretty nice looking spacious 1br in harlem, rent controlled of course, got lucky. My 2br is $1400 a month, when we first started renting it was only $1100 but there's basically no tenants rights where I live (landlords all found one weird trick to get around them all) so rent has gone up about $100 a year. A 2br just went for $1600 in our building so rip our finances next year. We're still managing the 1/3 rule but it's going to be tight if they keep putting it up $100 or more a year. My friends lucked out and found a huge 2br half-a-house for $1200 with a yard and everything. Old lady landlord who had the same previous tenants for like 20 years so wasn't sure what to raise the rent to, so score for them, and she doesn't know the one weird trick so they actually signed a proper tenant agreement without loopholes. Standard 2br rent in town seems to be around $1300-$2000 now Wages are down/stagnant as well. Local retail blames ((BIKE LANES)) for all their sales decreases over the last years though, can't possibly be skyrocketing rents and cost of living. Super luxury stores are doing well, nothing else is though.
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Jun 21, 2017 18:32
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fishmech posted:This is completely false. It's because the land is low value and it's inherently just plain cheap to build a normal house these days, Far less labor is really needed than there used to be. Those cheap houses couldn't exist without the infrastructure, mortgage write-offs, and thousands of little zoning policies, tax codes, and subsidies that keeps sprawl sprawling. If sprawl had to not just pay for its immediate infrastructure, but the increased load on local highways, and the long term maintenance for all that infastructure (their property taxes are usually artificially low and don't result in the area "breaking even") they would suddenly not be such a good deal. http://grist.org/cities/starving-the-cities-to-feed-the-suburbs/ https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/27 http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/smart-growth-working-families/subsidies-and-sprawl
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Jun 21, 2017 18:59
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fishmech posted:Yes they would. They'd simply be a little less appealing. Right.. that's the entire subsidy I'm talking about. The government pays, directly or indirectly, to make those far flung suburban houses more attractive, and thus more of them get built. This is not at all a controversial claim to anyone remotely connected to the fields of planning or econ policy. Big box retail is often subsidized in a similar way, at a net loss to the greater community. The city (or most likely local non-city authority) will pay to upgrade a road or sewer or something, or the developer will pony up the initial funds but then offload all future upkeep on the local authority. Meanwhile "pro business" tax policy will see the big box store paying extremely little in the way of taxes. In the short term the local officials pat them selves on the back for attracting development and getting funds to upgrade infrastructure, but in the long term are stuck with the costs and a huge development that's taxes don't end up covering the long-term costs, plus it's put a bunch of local businesses in the city-proper out of business, businesses that were in buildings that payed much higher property taxes and were a net profit for the city based on their related infrastructure costs. Both for housing and retail, sprawl is bad short term thinking that offloads the long term costs onto the region, which means the actually profitable areas (cities) end up footing the bill. Usually these unincorporated areas just end up not being able to pay for the upkeep, so they go begging cap in hand to the state or other authorities in the name of "economic growth" and "supporting rural development" and get money, but that is starting to tighten up in some areas. The screaming and gnashing of teeth when a local authority declares it needs to drastically reduce the miles of paved roads so rip up some suburbs road and puts in a dirt road. They'll even give these areas the option of incorporating or paying more taxes if they want things like paved roads or street lights and they'll vote no. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 19:14
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You are, like often, incorrect on just about anything related to urban planning or land use by cherry-picking examples and nit-picking the trees to miss the forest. Luckily you dont work in the planning/land use policy field thank god, so we can both leave these issues to people who actually study them for a living and all agree there's a huge number of policies from mortgage deductions, regulations, tax breaks, and direct and indirect subsidies that artificially make sprawl-based development much more financially attractive than it should be.
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Jun 21, 2017 19:27
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Why does the US have so insanely much retail space compared to other countries? Is it just more square footage (i.e. big box grocery stores where other places might have something more similar to a bodega) or is it number of storefronts too? It's a lot to do with what I mentioned above. Local policies give massive incentives for warehouse-sized stores and strip malls to be built right at the borders of cities. They get access to that city's customer base and infrastructure without paying any taxes towards them. Tons of cheap land and policies designed to encourage its development. It led to a tax/regulatory/zoning sort of race to the bottom as communities all competed to get these huge retail developments because if they didn't, the neighbouring area would and jobs jobs jobs. Geography of Nowhere is a really good and easy read that lays out why the american built form is the way it is and touches on the retail angle a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 19:36
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Solkanar512 posted:Before we go any further into this rural/suburban/urban discussion, would someone please define or point to a previously established definition of those terms specifically? Urban means a dense walkable downtown-like place with wall-to-wall buildings, or it means any non-rural incorporated land, or some arbitrary density, or political border on a city map. Suburban means any residential area of mostly single family houses even if right next to downtown and serviced by great transit, or it means only far flung massive subdivisions of McMansions built on the cheap by greedy and racist developers. Rural means suburbs but on bigger lots with maybe the odd farm nearby, or it means only extremely remote areas not just at low densities but also also hours from the nearest proper city Select which ever definitions best work for the semantics of your argument, or make the other person's claims seem invalid. Hope that clears things up.
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Jun 21, 2017 21:06
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Per capita, dumdum. Also, no we aren't. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-24/u-s-stores-are-too-big-too-boring-and-too-expensive http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/02/america_has_too_many_stores.html These articles touch on the too-much-retail problem in more detail. Less what caused it, more what the fallout is going to be.
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Jun 21, 2017 21:48
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Yeah that's my problem with 99% of retail, even if I had a lot of disposable income I don't want any of that poo poo, not even for free. It's store after store selling weird useless crap I don't want, no one I know wants, and although I logically understand other people are buying it, I can't understand why. The few things I do waste my money on all end up having to come from online shops because retail doesn't carry them.
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Jun 21, 2017 22:52
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The advertising angle is an interesting one. Every single person I know has pretty much shut out all convention forms of marketing. No one watches live TV, everything is adblocked, and most people are savy enough to not bother watching youtubes and poo poo with obviously sponsored content (the sort of hype generating paid shills RLM is always mocking). I have no idea what blockbusters are coming to or even in theatres, I have no idea about new product X or service Y and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. Pretty much everyone I know feels the same way, tune out all the marketing and just get things when you feel you need something, not when someone else tells you you need something. Word of mouth from trusted friends becomes the only form of marketing. When purchases are made, advise is sought, research is done, and biased sources and fake reviews are avoided. I don't think my behavior would change much if I had actual disposable income either, I just sincerely don't want all that poo poo. There seems to be some pretty big generational divides in shopping too. My parents and boomers in general seem very much driven by the status of consumption and the lifestyles and consumerism they see in the media. The neighbour got a kurieg machine? What's what? It's the new expensive fancy way to make lovely coffee?? We need one too!!! Don't research it, don't reach reviews, don't reflect on if you actually need it or not, just get it. So they got the stupid machine and within a month hated it realizing it was mostly a gimmick and the stupid pods were expensive and wasteful. A friend boasts about their new huge TV? Suddenly their huge TV isn't huge enough. Oh now they need a PVR, and digital cable, and netflix, and a bunch of other services they sign up for and don't really use but some other boomer friend has them so they have to have them too, even if half of them they can't even figure out how to use properly. There's always some expensive new gadget or service they just need to get to keep up with the joneses.
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Jun 22, 2017 01:47
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I met my wife on ICQ
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Jun 22, 2017 02:48
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ReidRansom posted:Why do any of you need the press or whoever to validate your tastes. Just listen to whatever you like and stop giving them power over you. Correct, the entirety of music I'm exposed to is via friends and I have no idea what's popular or not just listen to whats good, it's all word of mouth. No radio, no ads, no magazines, no gods, no masters. It's a whole world of bandcamp sites and other free streaming and friends uploading mp3's to google drives to share around. If I particularly like something, I'll buy a physical album of it. It's a good system!
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Jun 22, 2017 17:50
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I notice too in the world of jewelry there's a big trend of not buying from some big chain jewelry store but instead just buying poo poo at someone's market stall during some market. They all have cards and links to their etsy store or what ever so if you find someone making stuff you like you can follow them. Pretty much all my friends who buy "fashion accessories" much prefer to buy "local handcrafted" stuff, not out of some indie local cred but because the quality is better and you can often find much more interesting and unique things that way, and it doesn't cost any more and is often in fact cheaper than buying from some over-priced jewelry chain. And no one gives a poo poo what anything is really made out of so long as it's quality and doesn't fall apart. Is that a real diamond? Who gives a poo poo, the point of this stuff is to look pretty, if it looks pretty it's pretty. $500 earrings with real diamonds don't look any better than a $50 pair with "fake" ones, it's all down to the design of the pieces them selves and how they look all together with your outfit. Which once again goes back to a shift of people buying things purely because they like them, not as some conspicuous consumption or show of wealth. Anyone can buy expensive poo poo, but it takes skill to put together a good look. No one cares anymore how much your items cost, it's entirely about how it makes you look.
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Jun 22, 2017 18:38
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Yeah, I really think it's a change for the better. But I, and presumably you, live in urban settings where we have access to this kind of stuff. I'm really curious how much the collapse of consumerism is penetrating suburbia. They're the ones with the failing malls, but where do they buy fashion accessories? I know Forever 21 does really well with their lovely jewelry but oh my god, it's such poo poo. Everyone's used to looking at their clothing and going "well I can get one wear out of this before it falls apart" but a necklace? That's ostensibly made of metal? I think it really depends on the type of suburbia in question. Upscale suburbia is still doing well and their malls and lifestyle centres or whatever the name of the year of what a strip mall is called are doing pretty well. All the rich suburbs around me are still building and expanding their retail spaces. The death of malls in the US is closely matches with the spread of poverty in many suburbs. People don't have any loving money so they can't shop as much. Wealth inequality is increasing drastically as well, so mid-level brands are struggling. You need to go dollar store or super high end, anything in between is endangered. The malls around me are all trying to look very upscale, expensive renos, more picky about their tenants, don't want anything dollar-store or "value brand" looking. The few older malls with cheaper local stores are struggling or being redeveloped, but the "high end" (not actually high end, just the illusion of it) malls are doing great. They also really like to combine things like cosmetic surgery clinics, yoga studios, fitness centres, "wellness centres" and other such things so you can really spend a day there.
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Jun 22, 2017 18:52
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A 1 br apartment is about 1,200 a month, a 2br getting closer to 2,000. A 1br condos are in the 300k range and 2br in the 400-800k range depending on the location. Detatched houses not in a wasteland are pretty much starting at 800k but more typically in the 1 million dollar range. Boomers put everything into their houses and climbing the "property ladder" while fighting for government policies that keep house prices going up, all while not helping their kids pay for education. While the next generation has no housing stability and has to pay all their income towards rent or a mortgage on a micro-condo they could only get because their parents gave them 80k down. (I've heard of so many people who's parents refused to help with school, but said they'd help with the most important thing, a downpayment to get in the property gain since real wealth growth doesn't come from working anymore, it comes entirely from house equity) I wonder why these drat millenniums are killing retail??? When 50%+ of your income is going to housing and the rest debt payments you don't tend to buy lots of big ticket items all the time. When you have to move a lot because renters have pretty much no rights you learn not to hoard a lot of useless consumer crap. When climate change and late stage capitalism make you wonder what sort of legit post-apocalyptic world your kids might inherit, you maybe don't feel comfortable starting a family and continuing the reproduction of labor/consumption. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 16:00
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HEY NONG MAN posted:That's what he meant by "renters have no rights" It's really fantastic, we have a pretty ok set of tenants rights on paper. Usually rights are not something you can sign away, but landlords all figured out to add a checkbox saying your lease is 1 year and you can never go monthly and once that year is up you're treated as a brand new tenant. So essentially all protections regarding eviction, yearly rent increases, giving tenants notice, they're all out the window because of one weird trick. Oh and the government refuses to fix it because the housing minister is also a big landlord and they're basically funded by political donations from landlords and developers.
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Jun 23, 2017 17:52
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When you have a huge house you really feel you need to fill it, often with garbage. It's always shocking to me just how much poo poo people manage to hoard as part of the typical middle class lifestyle. Families of 3-4 with 3,000 sqft houses that can't park in their garages because there's soooo much poo poo they've collected. Their kids don't just have bedrooms they have a designated play room because they have so many toys they can't all fit in one room. Dad has his "man cave" with a huge TV and bar setup, there's also a family room with a huge TV setup as well, plus a TV in the kitchen and all bedrooms, all with digital cable boxes and PVR's and poo poo. There's a formal dining room no one ever uses, but it needs to be fully furnished. The kitchen is huge, there are so many appliances. Every possible bulky single-use kitchen tool imaginable is stored somewhere in these dozens of cabinets, all to be used once or twice a year, if ever at all. There's a boat and trailer a ton of fishing poo poo, and a motorcycle and related poo poo, and there's 3 cars some how and a bunch of car related tools but no one in the house actually works on the cars. Everyone has 20 hobbies and all the related gear and supplies but many aren't touched for years at a time. There's never this idea that your house is full, or you have all the things you need. You should be always buying, like there's some sort of consumption budget you need to spend every quarter or the money will be lost. Buy a new coffee maker because you didn't buy anything nice this month, you don't need one, your old one works fine, but this new one looks cooler. Buy a 5th TV because it's on sale, you don't really need it, but it was on sale you could stick it in the guest bedroom. Just always be buying. And this was just the standard model middle class boomers followed. You bought a house, you filled it to bursting with stuff, then you'd trade up to a bigger house and fill it with even more stuff. They had the income, the floor space, and the stability to do this. People now don't have any of those, they also don't have as much free time. So no poo poo they're going to buy a lot less and buy things online, saving them time. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 18:54
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It gets really really hard when kids get into school and become aware of class, it's specially rough on girls. If you don't have the latest phone, the hot brand, the new boots, some hair scrunchie that's so hot this month, some stupid bracelet all the other cool girls have, whatever it's loving random, but you don't have it you get hella bullied. Boys need the latest video game poo poo, but there's far less pressure/judgement on clothing and accessories. I have a few friends with daughters and it's hard on them to balance being anti-consumer with their kids being able to fully fit-in in school. One had a real hard time with bullying based on perceived class, the other got lucky and ended up with very confident girls that don't give a gently caress and have enough similar friends that the peer pressure isn't so strong. I think the big difference is one sends her kid to a "good school" full of rich kids, while the other just goes to the closest neighbourhood school.
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Jun 23, 2017 19:54
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I always want a bigger place and a sense of stability because I'm big into model trains. We have two pretty good hobby shops that sell model train poo poo in town but I almost never go to them because what costs $50 shipped online costs $80 there. Or the 2nd shop has a rad old goth hippie owner but he doesn't carry much N scale stuff. Also the owners of the big store are reactionary arch-conservatives trying to rally the city to stop all bike lanes and subsidize more parking lots. So I end up ordering everything online, generally 2nd hand.
Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 20:20
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Please, as someone in the construction/development industry don't do shipping container housing. They are extremely not suited for it and end up giving you a cramped low-ceiling garbage space for just as much money as conventional construction. It's one of those things that sounds good but in practise does not work out. Use them as a backyard shed or some sort of out-building to store you ever-growing hoard of retail purchases, but please don't try to live in them.
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Jun 23, 2017 22:13
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Solkanar512 posted:Could you guys stop building houses that maximize the square footage of a given lot? Some of us want to garden. I even promise to minimize the amount of grass I plant, deal? I just tell people how to get out of buildings that are on fire, and help make sure they aren't on fire in the first place. Your house issue is much more to do with zoning than developers though. Buy a lot and build a house to suit if you want a nice garden space though.
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Jun 23, 2017 22:53
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In my city in the late 70's or so as part of this horrible urban planning fad of "downtowns should compete with suburban malls by BECOMING a suburban mall!!" phase that gutted so many of our cities, we demolished a whole city block to build a big ugly street-scape destroying urban mall with a ton of underground parking. The mall never did well because people don't come downtown to go inside a lovely ugly mall, they want to walk along rows of pretty old storefronts. So the mall failed and was an empty eyesore. In the 90's a large downtown department store demolished half of its self and built a huge mall, this time instead of low cramped suburban-mall design it was a 4 story deal with a big open atrium down the middle, I'm sure we've all seen this design. This mall did quite well and spelled the end of any hope for getting the ugly 70's mall back from the dead. How things have changed over the years is a bit interesting, and shows how malls can sort of adapt. The 70's mall is still a massive eyesore, a whole square block of nearly empty walls facing small historic buildings. But the main mall space has been replaced with a huge government call centre and offices. The 90's mall suffered over the last decade, the bottom 2-3 floors which have direct access to the street are doing ok, but the upper floors had trouble holding onto tenants. So they pretty much gutted the top floor and leased one whole half to a big fitness studio and the other half to the government as a passport office. Adding office or non-retail services to malls has been a big trend here lately. Where retail depends on foot traffic and impulse buys, something like a doctor's office or a driver's license centre don't need to be in the high-traffic areas to be successful. But of course that can only go so far, you can't just replace everything in a mall with that or you'd end up with a weird mall-like professional building and there isn't enough demand for those services to fill every dying mall.
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Jun 25, 2017 20:07
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Jun 26, 2017 21:50
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It's super hard to talk about urban planning stuff in a general way, it's much better to use specific examples of specific cities/areas.
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Jun 27, 2017 19:20
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It's really hard to solve problems that are not directed related to class but have a large class component when the only tools/levers we're given are inherently capitalist ones. Things like making parking more expensive, making gas more expensive, congestion taxes, tolls, they all work really well as "sticks" to get people to drive less. The problem of course is that any price based system for deterring a behavior or consumption, it hits the poor very hard and the rich can ignore it. You need to bust out all the carrots and all the sticks at the same time while doing your best to mitigate the transition pains on the most vulnerable to their effects.
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Jun 27, 2017 19:38
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Once a week I drive to a larger supermarket and get 2 big heavy bags full of groceries, but beyond that 90% of my shopping and errands are done on foot, walk to work too, it's great. The car becomes a tool of convenience, a luxury, not an essential item you're crippled without. Wife works in the next town over, car pools on the way there and takes the bus back. It's about an 40-50min trip total using transit/walking vs maybe a 25-30 min drive but she prefers it because driving is stressful and she'll read a book or listen to a podcast or something. But in so many cities this sort of thing isn't an option. The nearest store is a drive away and its just unpleasant to walk anywhere because nothing is set up to make walking feel pleasant or safe. Cycling is even more dangerous and unpleasant. Transit either doesn't exist, or when it does it turns a 20 min drive into an hour and a half trip thats once again very unpleasant. But how do you change it? When a city is already built up with only cars in mind it's extremely hard to break this cycle and politicians just don't have the political capital to do it. Like so many issues, things will have to get really bad to the point that the middle class are effected before there's the political capital needed to change things, and at that point it's 10x as expensive to do.
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Jun 27, 2017 20:10
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 06:24 |
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I think SF is actually a peninsula For now
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Jun 28, 2017 03:26
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