5 ms·

>Yeah, having a corner grocery might be good, but without mobility, the grocers are going to realize that you don't really have much choice about buying from th

by graeme 7y ago

>Yeah, having a corner grocery might be good, but without mobility, the grocers are going to realize that you don't really have much choice about buying from them, and maybe start charging higher prices, or not stocking as much variety, or higher fewer people and having less service. Have you never lived or shopped in a dense city? In most you'll have 2-3 grocers within a 5-7 min walk, with many more within a 15 min walk, including discount grocers and specialty grocers.

rayiner 7y ago
I’ve lived in several. There was no grocer within walking distance of my apartment in Baltimore. (Near Penn Station.) There was one overpriced Safeway where I lived in DC. Next nearest was a Giant 15 minutes away. No grocery store within walking distance of the apartment we looked at in Philadelphia. Many places in Manhattan don’t have a grocery store 5-7 minutes walk away (though most will have one within 15). Have you ever lived in a dense city in the US?
- alephnan 7y ago
  > Many places in Manhattan don’t have a grocery store 5-7 minutes walk away (though most will have one within 15). This is not true, unless you’re including Harlem and FiDi. Manhattan stores are pricy, I permit that, but that’s not for a lack of competition. Have you ever lived in Manhattan?
  - rayiner 7y ago
    You just names two large sections of Manhattan, where a lot of the cheaper apartments are. Add to that parts of the UES and Hells Kitchen. I lived at 89th and broadway. We had a grocery store nearby, but there are definitely parts of Manhattan that don’t have a real grocery store within a 5 minute walk.
    - alephnan 7y ago
      Fair enough.
  - wcunning 7y ago
    Harlem (140th give or take) was the only place I could find a decent grocery store that wasn't outrageously expensive. I was fortunate enough to live about 10 minutes from it, though I was not pleased that that's one of the few places left on Manhattan that still has significant hills.
- neltnerb 7y ago
  But how much of this is our own fault through zoning? Look at this: http://maps.dcoz.dc.gov/zr16/#l=12&x=-8575451.094054567&y=4706150.466548093&mms=18!26!21!24!22!4!8!1!2!23&dcb=0 http://maps.dcoz.dc.gov/zr16/#l=12&x=-8575451.094054567&y=47... All the yellows and browns are residential zoned. And almost no mixed-use zoning. This makes your experience sound as if by design, not as nature would do it. Well, looks like that regulation isn't great for stores. Here's the exceptions to residential units in the residential apartment zones: https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/RuleList.aspx?DownloadFile=901F565F-0000-C6CC-AA0D-67C08A7D17CA https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/RuleList.aspx?DownloadFile... Huh. 420.1.c explicitly bans corner stores. 420.1.g kind of looks like you can do a store under the apartment at least. This zoning map really doesn't look friendly to foot traffic. My experience was as the OP, grocery stores I haven't even bothered to try yet within a 10 minute walk. This is the zoning map of Somerville. http://3pb8cv933tuz26rfz3u13x17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/ProposedZoningAtlas_20180926.pdf http://3pb8cv933tuz26rfz3u13x17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-c... It looks totally different, granted the scale is much different.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    A lot of it is the fault of zoning. But that’s the reality in many US cities, even dense ones.
  - graeme 7y ago
    Wow, great map. Know of any for other american cities? Would be interested to see nyc, especially if it had grandfathering layered in.
    - neltnerb 7y ago
      Pretty much everyone publishes them online, everyone needs them when they do construction projects. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/zoning-maps.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/zoning-maps.page They appear to have each section of the map available as a PDF. I guess everyone just does it a little different. I'd expect NYC to be closer to Boston though since they're from the same era and both have limited area to spread and have a lot of grandfathered in buildings. I'm a bit surprised DC is so segmented by land use, though I suppose it's a more recent city it's not as if 200 years is chump change. It seems like the zones are created and existing stuff gets exceptions carved out, and if they get torn down then they lose those exceptions and become the default type. So if buildings get destroyed quickly or if there's a lot of space for new construction I'd expect more simple separations between land use types.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  When I lived in SF (Nob Hill) I had at least corner grocery stores within a 10 minute walk. One full service grocery store, and 2 more full service grocery stories if I extended to a 15 minute walk. The corner stores were small and had limited selection, but had a decent produce selection, and the store closest to me had a daily meat delivery, so I could ask for pretty much any cut of meat and they'd have it for me the next day. I'd usually make a weekly trip to the full store for staples, and then stop by the corner store for daily needs. But nowadays, proximity to grocery shopping is moot for me since I just shop online and have it delivered.
- graeme 7y ago
  I wonder if this is an american thing then. I'm Canadian, have lived in several cities here plus several more in europe. I'm in Montreal currently. The cities I've been in in those places are pretty much all as I described. Manhattan and Brooklyn are the only US places I know well. Those have lots of grocers, but are very expensive, which I chalked up the fact that everything in NYC is expensive. It could be that this is just a difference in how American cities are laid out and regulated. I have noticed that when I'm in most other American cities they seem either very small at their core, or very car centric. For example, Boston's historic core is incredibly small. Washington seems to be a ghost town during the evening, except in georgetown. Pittsburgh has a tiny core. Santa Monica was hard to walk instead with all the traffic lights at each block. I haven't been in any of those places enough to have a definite view though, or at least I didn't grocery shop there. Rereading your initial comment, I realized that all the cities I lived also had excellent mobility. You could bike or transit easily to any other part of town.

by graeme 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

I’ve lived in several. There was no grocer within walking distance of my apartment in Baltimore. (Near Penn Station.) There was one overpriced Safeway where I lived in DC. Next nearest was a Giant 15 minutes away. No grocery store within walking distance of the apartment we looked at in Philadelphia. Many places in Manhattan don’t have a grocery store 5-7 minutes walk away (though most will have one within 15). Have you ever lived in a dense city in the US?

alephnan 7y ago
> Many places in Manhattan don’t have a grocery store 5-7 minutes walk away (though most will have one within 15). This is not true, unless you’re including Harlem and FiDi. Manhattan stores are pricy, I permit that, but that’s not for a lack of competition. Have you ever lived in Manhattan?
- rayiner 7y ago
  You just names two large sections of Manhattan, where a lot of the cheaper apartments are. Add to that parts of the UES and Hells Kitchen. I lived at 89th and broadway. We had a grocery store nearby, but there are definitely parts of Manhattan that don’t have a real grocery store within a 5 minute walk.
  - alephnan 7y ago
    Fair enough.
- wcunning 7y ago
  Harlem (140th give or take) was the only place I could find a decent grocery store that wasn't outrageously expensive. I was fortunate enough to live about 10 minutes from it, though I was not pleased that that's one of the few places left on Manhattan that still has significant hills.
neltnerb 7y ago
But how much of this is our own fault through zoning? Look at this: http://maps.dcoz.dc.gov/zr16/#l=12&x=-8575451.094054567&y=4706150.466548093&mms=18!26!21!24!22!4!8!1!2!23&dcb=0 http://maps.dcoz.dc.gov/zr16/#l=12&x=-8575451.094054567&y=47... All the yellows and browns are residential zoned. And almost no mixed-use zoning. This makes your experience sound as if by design, not as nature would do it. Well, looks like that regulation isn't great for stores. Here's the exceptions to residential units in the residential apartment zones: https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/RuleList.aspx?DownloadFile=901F565F-0000-C6CC-AA0D-67C08A7D17CA https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/RuleList.aspx?DownloadFile... Huh. 420.1.c explicitly bans corner stores. 420.1.g kind of looks like you can do a store under the apartment at least. This zoning map really doesn't look friendly to foot traffic. My experience was as the OP, grocery stores I haven't even bothered to try yet within a 10 minute walk. This is the zoning map of Somerville. http://3pb8cv933tuz26rfz3u13x17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/ProposedZoningAtlas_20180926.pdf http://3pb8cv933tuz26rfz3u13x17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-c... It looks totally different, granted the scale is much different.
- rayiner 7y ago
  A lot of it is the fault of zoning. But that’s the reality in many US cities, even dense ones.
- graeme 7y ago
  Wow, great map. Know of any for other american cities? Would be interested to see nyc, especially if it had grandfathering layered in.
  - neltnerb 7y ago
    Pretty much everyone publishes them online, everyone needs them when they do construction projects. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/zoning-maps.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/zoning-maps.page They appear to have each section of the map available as a PDF. I guess everyone just does it a little different. I'd expect NYC to be closer to Boston though since they're from the same era and both have limited area to spread and have a lot of grandfathered in buildings. I'm a bit surprised DC is so segmented by land use, though I suppose it's a more recent city it's not as if 200 years is chump change. It seems like the zones are created and existing stuff gets exceptions carved out, and if they get torn down then they lose those exceptions and become the default type. So if buildings get destroyed quickly or if there's a lot of space for new construction I'd expect more simple separations between land use types.
Johnny555 7y ago
When I lived in SF (Nob Hill) I had at least corner grocery stores within a 10 minute walk. One full service grocery store, and 2 more full service grocery stories if I extended to a 15 minute walk. The corner stores were small and had limited selection, but had a decent produce selection, and the store closest to me had a daily meat delivery, so I could ask for pretty much any cut of meat and they'd have it for me the next day. I'd usually make a weekly trip to the full store for staples, and then stop by the corner store for daily needs. But nowadays, proximity to grocery shopping is moot for me since I just shop online and have it delivered.
graeme 7y ago
I wonder if this is an american thing then. I'm Canadian, have lived in several cities here plus several more in europe. I'm in Montreal currently. The cities I've been in in those places are pretty much all as I described. Manhattan and Brooklyn are the only US places I know well. Those have lots of grocers, but are very expensive, which I chalked up the fact that everything in NYC is expensive. It could be that this is just a difference in how American cities are laid out and regulated. I have noticed that when I'm in most other American cities they seem either very small at their core, or very car centric. For example, Boston's historic core is incredibly small. Washington seems to be a ghost town during the evening, except in georgetown. Pittsburgh has a tiny core. Santa Monica was hard to walk instead with all the traffic lights at each block. I haven't been in any of those places enough to have a definite view though, or at least I didn't grocery shop there. Rereading your initial comment, I realized that all the cities I lived also had excellent mobility. You could bike or transit easily to any other part of town.