4 ms·

Part of the problem is that the new retail spaces are very large. They get built out to the size of a chain pharmacy or bank, because chain tenants are like the

Part of the problem is that the new retail spaces are very large. They get built out to the size of a chain pharmacy or bank, because chain tenants are like the golden ticket of stability, yet very few businesses can profitably, reliably fill spaces that large. If you look at thriving ground floor retail in traditional cities, often the storefronts are as small as 25 feet wide.

Animats 3y ago
I'm seeing little ones, more like nail salon size than chain pharmacy size.
- pandaman 3y ago
  The "StrongTowns/NotJustBikes" crowd populating these threads believes that the lack of parking actually increases a retail shop's patronage.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    Parking availability can increase retail patronage but the parking actually has to turn over. Free street parking that is occupied all day by the same car results in at most one net new customer, which isn’t good, and most street parking in the US is either free or priced low enough that people park too long.
    - pandaman 3y ago
      These retail places have no parking at all usually. Some have parking in the garage of the building where they are located but this usually involves driving around the block, taking one specific entrance and then driving inside the garage to a designated spot following cryptic signs, it's not unheard of having to take a ticket to be validated by a shop later. These arrangements are not much better than just plain absence of parking, IMHO. Almost as bad is street parking: even if it's turning over it does not matter since you have a very limited number of spots and no place to wait for a spot so most people will just move on if they don't find a spot (and won't go to such a place intentionally as the chance of catching a free spot is miniscule).
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        at least part of the idea is that the area should become dense enough that foot traffic either from the home or transit should become the lion's share. At the end of the day parking lots are worth less and generate less tax than developments. with most of America though, it's hard work because actually getting to that level of density is chicken and egg; and then of course in California the ghost of Prop 13 rears its head and discourages residential densification in particular.
        pandaman 3y ago
        I can only talk about the observable reality, where a retail shop without parking is a very low revenue enterprise even in an expensive area. E.g. West Los Angeles has plenty of dinky shops with no customer in sight next to busiest places in the city. It's pretty hard to raise money for a business on the hope that Santa Monica will turn into Manhattan, I imagine.
        bobthepanda 3y ago
        I mean, Los Angeles and other places do not build housing at sufficient scale, hence the state going after cities with SB 9 and whatnot. It’s certainly possible; Seattle and Portland have dense commercial centers outside of downtowns that are lively with little net new parking.
  - eru 3y ago
    Parking costs a lot of surface area. Especially parking lots. If you just removed the parking and replaced it with nothing, that wouldn't increase patronage. But if you used that area to increase density instead, that could increase patronage. Especially if you go dense enough for the area to become a destination in itself and to make public transport a sensible option.
    - pandaman 3y ago
      But there are no parking lots to remove in these first-floor retail spaces so you cannot increase density. The outdoor shopping malls, on the other hand, with enormous parking lots and no housing nearby somehow manage to get a lot of custom. It could be that the idea that a retail without parking is set to thrive is just wrong?
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        Malls in the US are suffering from a retail apocalypse as well. Really the root issue is that there is too much retail square footage in the US. Retail sq ft per person is 23 sq ft, compared to 2-5 in Europe and Japan. In that context building new retail is a fool’s errand. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-per-capita-selected-countries-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-per...
        pandaman 3y ago
        Malls - yes, outdoor malls - no.
      - userinanother 3y ago
        Those spaces are wacky. There isn’t enough density to support wages of a person working there and not enough parking to pull in outside customers. They would make good personal studios for the locals but the landlords want too much or too onerous of a lease agreement.
        pandaman 3y ago
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  That’s certainly different from where I live. In Seattle it’s a lot of dentist offices and new 150-seat restaurants, or at least a revolving door because no restaurant fills that size and they inevitably go under.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  What is the point of nail salons? Seems like women have been indoctrinated to think that nails are important. Sorry, they are not. No man ever considers nails when regarding a woman. Only women look at nails when looking at other women. The supposed attraction of long nails is like the pale-skinned attraction in all agricultural communities: pale skin means you are a rich lady-of-leisure, living inside the big house, not a farmer or laborer working under the sun in the fields. This prejudice used to be true in western societies before the Industrial Revolution. But now it is reversed, with pale complexion meaning you are poor and work in a factory, but sun-tanned complexion meaning you are rich enough to holiday in Spain or Thailand to get sun in the winter, or now even get UV radiated on a sun-bed. (As long-haul flights have come down in price, sunbeds are even cheaper, and warnings about skin cancer hit home, the inverse prejudice may be reverting back to the original pale-skin preference). However, the farm-based prejudice is very much alive in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, etc.). Women from these countries carry parasols whenever there is a hint of sun, even if they have paid a lot of money to go to the sun on holiday, in say, Thailand or Bali. [So there is the bizarre contradiction of western women paying for UV sunbeds, even as eastern women carry parasols on a hazy day.] Nails are like that: you cannot have long nails if you are a farm worker, or craftsperson, or work in a laundry or a kitchen. Long nails mean you are lady of leisure, hence enviously regarded by other ladies. Long decorated nails are not an indication of attractiveness to men, they are always and everywhere a signal of class, from one lady to another.
  - eru 3y ago
    You know that nail salons ain't about making your nails longer? (At least the vast majority of what they do is not about installing nail extensions are anything like that.) > Only women look at nails when looking at other women. That's the same as men going to the gym and working hard on their biceps and triceps. (Many women do appreciate some muscles, but when you talk to them you will learn that the butt is the are you should focus on, if you want to maximize attraction for most of them. Leg day, every day.) But there's nothing wrong with doing anything just for a kind of beauty that opposite gender by and large doesn't care about. As long as you care about it, that's fine. > However, the farm-based prejudice is very much alive in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, etc.). Women from these countries carry parasols whenever there is a hint of sun, even if they have paid a lot of money to go to the sun on holiday, in say, Thailand or Bali. I live in Singapore. You are right that many people here don't like to get too much sun. Me included. (But that's far from everyone here. Some people don't care too much.) I don't think there's much of an overlap between people going to sun themselves in Bali and the kind of people who carry a parasol. Back to the nails: I just clip mine myself, and they honestly look fairly terrible. I could go for the same length but have them done nicely. Not even with decoration or nail polish, just nice and with clear lines and perhaps some polishing. (And whatever else they can do.) If I worked in a customer-centric job, that would be absolutely vital. Or if my hands showed up on video a lot etc. None of this has anything to do with long nails or attraction by the preferred sex.

Animats 3y ago

I'm seeing little ones, more like nail salon size than chain pharmacy size.

pandaman 3y ago
The "StrongTowns/NotJustBikes" crowd populating these threads believes that the lack of parking actually increases a retail shop's patronage.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Parking availability can increase retail patronage but the parking actually has to turn over. Free street parking that is occupied all day by the same car results in at most one net new customer, which isn’t good, and most street parking in the US is either free or priced low enough that people park too long.
  - pandaman 3y ago
    These retail places have no parking at all usually. Some have parking in the garage of the building where they are located but this usually involves driving around the block, taking one specific entrance and then driving inside the garage to a designated spot following cryptic signs, it's not unheard of having to take a ticket to be validated by a shop later. These arrangements are not much better than just plain absence of parking, IMHO. Almost as bad is street parking: even if it's turning over it does not matter since you have a very limited number of spots and no place to wait for a spot so most people will just move on if they don't find a spot (and won't go to such a place intentionally as the chance of catching a free spot is miniscule).
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      at least part of the idea is that the area should become dense enough that foot traffic either from the home or transit should become the lion's share. At the end of the day parking lots are worth less and generate less tax than developments. with most of America though, it's hard work because actually getting to that level of density is chicken and egg; and then of course in California the ghost of Prop 13 rears its head and discourages residential densification in particular.
      - pandaman 3y ago
        I can only talk about the observable reality, where a retail shop without parking is a very low revenue enterprise even in an expensive area. E.g. West Los Angeles has plenty of dinky shops with no customer in sight next to busiest places in the city. It's pretty hard to raise money for a business on the hope that Santa Monica will turn into Manhattan, I imagine.
        bobthepanda 3y ago
        I mean, Los Angeles and other places do not build housing at sufficient scale, hence the state going after cities with SB 9 and whatnot. It’s certainly possible; Seattle and Portland have dense commercial centers outside of downtowns that are lively with little net new parking.
- eru 3y ago
  Parking costs a lot of surface area. Especially parking lots. If you just removed the parking and replaced it with nothing, that wouldn't increase patronage. But if you used that area to increase density instead, that could increase patronage. Especially if you go dense enough for the area to become a destination in itself and to make public transport a sensible option.
  - pandaman 3y ago
    But there are no parking lots to remove in these first-floor retail spaces so you cannot increase density. The outdoor shopping malls, on the other hand, with enormous parking lots and no housing nearby somehow manage to get a lot of custom. It could be that the idea that a retail without parking is set to thrive is just wrong?
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Malls in the US are suffering from a retail apocalypse as well. Really the root issue is that there is too much retail square footage in the US. Retail sq ft per person is 23 sq ft, compared to 2-5 in Europe and Japan. In that context building new retail is a fool’s errand. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-per-capita-selected-countries-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-per...
      - pandaman 3y ago
        Malls - yes, outdoor malls - no.
    - userinanother 3y ago
      Those spaces are wacky. There isn’t enough density to support wages of a person working there and not enough parking to pull in outside customers. They would make good personal studios for the locals but the landlords want too much or too onerous of a lease agreement.
      - pandaman 3y ago
bobthepanda 3y ago
That’s certainly different from where I live. In Seattle it’s a lot of dentist offices and new 150-seat restaurants, or at least a revolving door because no restaurant fills that size and they inevitably go under.
mikhailfranco 3y ago
What is the point of nail salons? Seems like women have been indoctrinated to think that nails are important. Sorry, they are not. No man ever considers nails when regarding a woman. Only women look at nails when looking at other women. The supposed attraction of long nails is like the pale-skinned attraction in all agricultural communities: pale skin means you are a rich lady-of-leisure, living inside the big house, not a farmer or laborer working under the sun in the fields. This prejudice used to be true in western societies before the Industrial Revolution. But now it is reversed, with pale complexion meaning you are poor and work in a factory, but sun-tanned complexion meaning you are rich enough to holiday in Spain or Thailand to get sun in the winter, or now even get UV radiated on a sun-bed. (As long-haul flights have come down in price, sunbeds are even cheaper, and warnings about skin cancer hit home, the inverse prejudice may be reverting back to the original pale-skin preference). However, the farm-based prejudice is very much alive in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, etc.). Women from these countries carry parasols whenever there is a hint of sun, even if they have paid a lot of money to go to the sun on holiday, in say, Thailand or Bali. [So there is the bizarre contradiction of western women paying for UV sunbeds, even as eastern women carry parasols on a hazy day.] Nails are like that: you cannot have long nails if you are a farm worker, or craftsperson, or work in a laundry or a kitchen. Long nails mean you are lady of leisure, hence enviously regarded by other ladies. Long decorated nails are not an indication of attractiveness to men, they are always and everywhere a signal of class, from one lady to another.
- eru 3y ago
  You know that nail salons ain't about making your nails longer? (At least the vast majority of what they do is not about installing nail extensions are anything like that.) > Only women look at nails when looking at other women. That's the same as men going to the gym and working hard on their biceps and triceps. (Many women do appreciate some muscles, but when you talk to them you will learn that the butt is the are you should focus on, if you want to maximize attraction for most of them. Leg day, every day.) But there's nothing wrong with doing anything just for a kind of beauty that opposite gender by and large doesn't care about. As long as you care about it, that's fine. > However, the farm-based prejudice is very much alive in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, etc.). Women from these countries carry parasols whenever there is a hint of sun, even if they have paid a lot of money to go to the sun on holiday, in say, Thailand or Bali. I live in Singapore. You are right that many people here don't like to get too much sun. Me included. (But that's far from everyone here. Some people don't care too much.) I don't think there's much of an overlap between people going to sun themselves in Bali and the kind of people who carry a parasol. Back to the nails: I just clip mine myself, and they honestly look fairly terrible. I could go for the same length but have them done nicely. Not even with decoration or nail polish, just nice and with clear lines and perhaps some polishing. (And whatever else they can do.) If I worked in a customer-centric job, that would be absolutely vital. Or if my hands showed up on video a lot etc. None of this has anything to do with long nails or attraction by the preferred sex.