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Funnily enough, the fact that these drones are being employed to deliver "toothpaste and batteries" is really kind of a perfect microcosm of the kind of America

Funnily enough, the fact that these drones are being employed to deliver "toothpaste and batteries" is really kind of a perfect microcosm of the kind of American planning and zoning foundational to modern NIMBYism—in a different environment, daily necessities like that would be available at a corner store very close to where people live, but we've found it preferable to make such restrictive residential areas and require businesses to have large parking lots such that corner stores have disappeared in favor of strip malls and big box stores, and now we're trying to replace those with annoying drones.

ethbr1 2y ago
But there's also an efficiency argument there. If technology now allows us to JIT distribute from a single store / warehouse across a larger area, isn't that better? Imho, the real problem with American suburban design is (a) the elimination of spaces where community organically happens (read: corner store) without replacement with something else (e.g. a park) & (b) the centralization of corporate power enabled by monopolies (e.g. Amazon logistics). To (b), I'd much prefer if drone distribution centers like this were city-owned property, with the drone service provided by one or more drone operators, with adjacent warehouse space for any company that wanted to distribute.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Well, it's also possible that delivery drones at scale maybe just have an unavoidable noise pollution factor. Sure, roads do too but those are pretty much a given even in areas with density that supports good public transit--and maybe especially if--see e.g. Manhattan. (And it's not like trains don't cause noise pollution too.) Aside from the odd military helicopter from a nearby training area, I have pretty much zero audible air traffic at my house. I would very much object to large drones overhead on a regular basis.
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    Manhattan is pretty far on the other extreme. In the kind of medium density typical of European cities (dense rows of 3-6 story townhouses) you have enough density to support excellent public transit and multiple supermarkets in walking distance while having very moderate road noise outside of arterial roads. Delivery drones would absolutely increase noise pollution in such places
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Ironically, there was some griping about the amount of tourist helicopter sightseeing traffic around Manhattan recently. E.g. https://council.nyc.gov/gale-brewer/helicopters/ https://council.nyc.gov/gale-brewer/helicopters/
    - WeylandYutani 2y ago
      That is true most streets are after all only used by the locals who live on that street. It is also quiet in the evening.
- pyrale 2y ago
  It isn’t efficient when you factor in the cost of such small deliveries. Also having some form of slack in the system goes a very long way in making the system resilient, especially in a system where your provider’s interests are not aligned with yours.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Cost in terms of what? Electric drone delivery is likely more cost-effective (external-accounted) than any of the alternative solutions.
ghaff 2y ago
Well, and a lot of people don't want to pay the premium usually associated with a bodega/corner store if they don't need to. I frequented some local camera stores over the years when they were more of a thing and, however rose-colored glasses I want to view them through, they weren't that great relative to today's options.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  In Europe there's a good chance the 'corner shop' is run by a national business or franchise, benefitting from their supply and logistics systems. That means prices are usually the same as in their larger stores, although the cheapest (low margin) brands might not be stocked in the smaller ones. I would never consider buying toothpaste or normal batteries online. What a hassle! Just take the packet off the shelf in the small supermarket that's at the end of my street, or the one by the station, or the one near the station by work, on the one just the other side of work. This is one supermarket chain in Denmark, and you'll note I haven't centred the map on the middle of Copenhagen but the suburbs: https://www.google.com/maps/search/Netto/@55.736038,12.4637442,13.87z?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIyNi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/search/Netto/@55.736038,12.46374...
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    I think this conversation has gotten a little exaggerated or maybe just over-specific to the bay area, the US is full of corner shops operated by famous brands like 7-11. They're usually combined with gas stations. The American phrase is "convenience store." You have to leave your suburban housing development to go to them, but if you live in the city they're probably within walking distance. They don't exist in the sphere of highly paid professionals, though, because they're eminently practical from a commercial standpoint and sell inexpensive junk food, novelty knives, figurines, cigarettes, and whatever you'd imagine being there just to move off the shelves. I've only seen useful goods in a handful of them, and it's always sold in tiny quantities (imagine buying a single roll of toilet paper) because their clientele might not have the capital to invest in bulk purchases. If you want to put this in a sort of social context, it's that laborers actually have quite a bit of money in America because having a lot of cash relative to the price of goods is the one part of the promise that comes true, and as a result they're catered to by a lot of retail. Those inexpensive retail outlets are the subject of endless complaints from people who you could call the conscious middle class and make up most of what you would think of as cheap American consumerism. The quintessential duo of Walmart and McDonalds is exceeded by convenience stores along this dimension and for most HN users, they don't exist in that they never think about them, and post things like "I don't have a corner shop."
bluGill 2y ago
While I oppose restrictive zoning, that fixing that isn't going to change the situation. Where people live is a compromise and the single family house in the suburb has some great properties that mean many people will choose that set of compromises. The density of single family houses doesn't support a corner store. It did before the automobile/streetcar, but now that those are common people will prefer to travel to to the much cheaper big-box store (which also has more selection) for most purchases and that doesn't leave enough "I just ran out of one thing" to support a corner store. Don't get me wrong, there will be more corner stores if they are allowed. However the economics of retail mean that most single family homes cannot not be in walking distance of a corner store. It gets worse when you account for single family houses being so car dependent people will out of habit drive to their neighbors even though the walk from where they park their car is longer than the door to door walk.
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago
  People go on walks or bike in their neighborhood all the time. A suburban neighborhood could absolutely support a corner store with a handful of parking spots. We just don't allow for the experiment to even happen due to zoning regulations.
  - ajmurmann 2y ago
    The zoning also is way too specific. Not far from my house is a busy intersection that has stuff like pawn shops and a run-down 7/11 at it. Very close to the intersection is a lot that's been empty for at least a decade now. A few years ago my wife and I thought we should look up what it costs and see if we can just pave it and put a food cart pot down. Turns out you can't do it. You must build a two-unit building with a specific number of rooms and square footage. WTF?! It's like a planned economy for housing. Needles to say, the lot is still empty because nobody wants to build a home like that in that location.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      The magic word is "variance" - the problem is it takes time (not even money, usually just time) to popularize an idea and get it publicly accepted and then pushed through the city council. I've seen it done; sometimes it takes a few months because it's simple and nobody cares, other times it takes years. And often the city council is itself playing the long game; waiting for the pawn shop and 7/11 to go out of business or sell, and then they snap it up, bulldoze it, and sell it to a developer who will build what they envision for the plot.
zoky 2y ago
Are toothpaste and batteries really daily necessities though? I buy toothpaste maybe once every two years in bulk, and batteries basically never, due to pretty much everything being rechargable via USB.
- ghaff 2y ago
  It's items in the collective though. (And I still use batteries although they're certainly nothing like daily necessities.) During the pandemic I really amped up my use of Amazon, etc. for deliveries and I found that I ended up getting orders delivered quicker once or twice a week than I would have ended up getting to even fairly nearby stores for.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Your dentist might want to have a talk with you if you're not using toothpaste daily.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    They said they buy it in bulk. I also do. Years ago I bought a dozen reels of floss from a dental supply shop. $60 for 2km of floss. I am still using it.
- master_crab 2y ago
  Check the expiration date on that toothpaste. Fluoride usually loses effectiveness 1-2 years after purchase (depending on production date). I'd get a new tube every 12 months or less.
wongarsu 2y ago
American zoning prohibiting shops in residential zones but allowing a drone hub just 800ft from residential buildings is a special kind of irony
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  When you learn more about the history of zoning - it's allll about keeping neighborhoods wealthy. Not allowing lower classes in. A lot of weird things make sense when you look at them through that lens.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    American zoning in theory: we will keep noise and pollution away from homes. American zoning in practice: the only place homes are permitted is within 50 meters of freeways.
    - Schiendelman 2y ago
      Ha! So true. It's fascinating, zoning in practice just has nothing to do with any of its stated goals.
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      > American zoning in theory: we will keep noise and pollution away from homes. I think you misunderstood the parents comment. The origins of zoning is to prevent the mixing of blacks and whites. It's not about noise pollution; it's about segregation.
      - mistrial9 2y ago
        this is misinformation -- zoning is complex; basically it appears that "if zoning was ever used to separate minority neighborhoods" then it becomes "zoning is to prevent mixing of races" Let's be perfectly clear -- racial segregation is illegal in the USA; zoning has many implementations, many uses, many pressures and has baggage from historical situations
dani__german 2y ago
[flagged]
toomuchtodo 2y ago
You're not wrong, but it will take decades to fix American urban development, if ever at all. Today, Amazon could use the US postal service for last mile delivery, which delivers six days a week and has systems in place for large scale shippers to deliver parcels to the closest hub. The choose not to, in the same way they squeeze their fulfillment workers as hard as they can. They want to make a logistics robot that does not require humans.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Amazon will use the postal service when it's the "best" option available (decided by some supercomputer AI somewhere, probably). What Amazon is deathly afraid of, and is a reality, is Walmart dropping stuff off at people's houses. The local Walmart provides next-day (sometimes same day if ordered early enough) free delivery of most anything non-perishabale they have in stock. Walmart already has the neighborhood warehouse, they just had to add a delivery driver or two. 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart. That could eat Amazon up and spit it out almost overnight. They know it, too. And the batteries and toothpaste from Walmart are almost certainly not counterfeit.
wodenokoto 2y ago
Here in Dubai, I have 2 or 3 corner stores within maybe a hundred meters of my residential tower and 9/10 purchases for groceries are through a delivery app.

ethbr1 2y ago

But there's also an efficiency argument there. If technology now allows us to JIT distribute from a single store / warehouse across a larger area, isn't that better? Imho, the real problem with American suburban design is (a) the elimination of spaces where community organically happens (read: corner store) without replacement with something else (e.g. a park) & (b) the centralization of corporate power enabled by monopolies (e.g. Amazon logistics). To (b), I'd much prefer if drone distribution centers like this were city-owned property, with the drone service provided by one or more drone operators, with adjacent warehouse space for any company that wanted to distribute.

ghaff 2y ago
Well, it's also possible that delivery drones at scale maybe just have an unavoidable noise pollution factor. Sure, roads do too but those are pretty much a given even in areas with density that supports good public transit--and maybe especially if--see e.g. Manhattan. (And it's not like trains don't cause noise pollution too.) Aside from the odd military helicopter from a nearby training area, I have pretty much zero audible air traffic at my house. I would very much object to large drones overhead on a regular basis.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Manhattan is pretty far on the other extreme. In the kind of medium density typical of European cities (dense rows of 3-6 story townhouses) you have enough density to support excellent public transit and multiple supermarkets in walking distance while having very moderate road noise outside of arterial roads. Delivery drones would absolutely increase noise pollution in such places
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Ironically, there was some griping about the amount of tourist helicopter sightseeing traffic around Manhattan recently. E.g. https://council.nyc.gov/gale-brewer/helicopters/ https://council.nyc.gov/gale-brewer/helicopters/
  - WeylandYutani 2y ago
    That is true most streets are after all only used by the locals who live on that street. It is also quiet in the evening.
pyrale 2y ago
It isn’t efficient when you factor in the cost of such small deliveries. Also having some form of slack in the system goes a very long way in making the system resilient, especially in a system where your provider’s interests are not aligned with yours.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Cost in terms of what? Electric drone delivery is likely more cost-effective (external-accounted) than any of the alternative solutions.

ghaff 2y ago

Well, and a lot of people don't want to pay the premium usually associated with a bodega/corner store if they don't need to. I frequented some local camera stores over the years when they were more of a thing and, however rose-colored glasses I want to view them through, they weren't that great relative to today's options.

Symbiote 2y ago
In Europe there's a good chance the 'corner shop' is run by a national business or franchise, benefitting from their supply and logistics systems. That means prices are usually the same as in their larger stores, although the cheapest (low margin) brands might not be stocked in the smaller ones. I would never consider buying toothpaste or normal batteries online. What a hassle! Just take the packet off the shelf in the small supermarket that's at the end of my street, or the one by the station, or the one near the station by work, on the one just the other side of work. This is one supermarket chain in Denmark, and you'll note I haven't centred the map on the middle of Copenhagen but the suburbs: https://www.google.com/maps/search/Netto/@55.736038,12.4637442,13.87z?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIyNi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/search/Netto/@55.736038,12.46374...
- whatshisface 2y ago
  I think this conversation has gotten a little exaggerated or maybe just over-specific to the bay area, the US is full of corner shops operated by famous brands like 7-11. They're usually combined with gas stations. The American phrase is "convenience store." You have to leave your suburban housing development to go to them, but if you live in the city they're probably within walking distance. They don't exist in the sphere of highly paid professionals, though, because they're eminently practical from a commercial standpoint and sell inexpensive junk food, novelty knives, figurines, cigarettes, and whatever you'd imagine being there just to move off the shelves. I've only seen useful goods in a handful of them, and it's always sold in tiny quantities (imagine buying a single roll of toilet paper) because their clientele might not have the capital to invest in bulk purchases. If you want to put this in a sort of social context, it's that laborers actually have quite a bit of money in America because having a lot of cash relative to the price of goods is the one part of the promise that comes true, and as a result they're catered to by a lot of retail. Those inexpensive retail outlets are the subject of endless complaints from people who you could call the conscious middle class and make up most of what you would think of as cheap American consumerism. The quintessential duo of Walmart and McDonalds is exceeded by convenience stores along this dimension and for most HN users, they don't exist in that they never think about them, and post things like "I don't have a corner shop."

bluGill 2y ago

While I oppose restrictive zoning, that fixing that isn't going to change the situation. Where people live is a compromise and the single family house in the suburb has some great properties that mean many people will choose that set of compromises. The density of single family houses doesn't support a corner store. It did before the automobile/streetcar, but now that those are common people will prefer to travel to to the much cheaper big-box store (which also has more selection) for most purchases and that doesn't leave enough "I just ran out of one thing" to support a corner store. Don't get me wrong, there will be more corner stores if they are allowed. However the economics of retail mean that most single family homes cannot not be in walking distance of a corner store. It gets worse when you account for single family houses being so car dependent people will out of habit drive to their neighbors even though the walk from where they park their car is longer than the door to door walk.

MSFT_Edging 2y ago
People go on walks or bike in their neighborhood all the time. A suburban neighborhood could absolutely support a corner store with a handful of parking spots. We just don't allow for the experiment to even happen due to zoning regulations.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  The zoning also is way too specific. Not far from my house is a busy intersection that has stuff like pawn shops and a run-down 7/11 at it. Very close to the intersection is a lot that's been empty for at least a decade now. A few years ago my wife and I thought we should look up what it costs and see if we can just pave it and put a food cart pot down. Turns out you can't do it. You must build a two-unit building with a specific number of rooms and square footage. WTF?! It's like a planned economy for housing. Needles to say, the lot is still empty because nobody wants to build a home like that in that location.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    The magic word is "variance" - the problem is it takes time (not even money, usually just time) to popularize an idea and get it publicly accepted and then pushed through the city council. I've seen it done; sometimes it takes a few months because it's simple and nobody cares, other times it takes years. And often the city council is itself playing the long game; waiting for the pawn shop and 7/11 to go out of business or sell, and then they snap it up, bulldoze it, and sell it to a developer who will build what they envision for the plot.

zoky 2y ago

Are toothpaste and batteries really daily necessities though? I buy toothpaste maybe once every two years in bulk, and batteries basically never, due to pretty much everything being rechargable via USB.

ghaff 2y ago
It's items in the collective though. (And I still use batteries although they're certainly nothing like daily necessities.) During the pandemic I really amped up my use of Amazon, etc. for deliveries and I found that I ended up getting orders delivered quicker once or twice a week than I would have ended up getting to even fairly nearby stores for.
fragmede 2y ago
Your dentist might want to have a talk with you if you're not using toothpaste daily.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  They said they buy it in bulk. I also do. Years ago I bought a dozen reels of floss from a dental supply shop. $60 for 2km of floss. I am still using it.
master_crab 2y ago
Check the expiration date on that toothpaste. Fluoride usually loses effectiveness 1-2 years after purchase (depending on production date). I'd get a new tube every 12 months or less.

wongarsu 2y ago

American zoning prohibiting shops in residential zones but allowing a drone hub just 800ft from residential buildings is a special kind of irony

Schiendelman 2y ago
When you learn more about the history of zoning - it's allll about keeping neighborhoods wealthy. Not allowing lower classes in. A lot of weird things make sense when you look at them through that lens.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  American zoning in theory: we will keep noise and pollution away from homes. American zoning in practice: the only place homes are permitted is within 50 meters of freeways.
  - Schiendelman 2y ago
    Ha! So true. It's fascinating, zoning in practice just has nothing to do with any of its stated goals.
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    > American zoning in theory: we will keep noise and pollution away from homes. I think you misunderstood the parents comment. The origins of zoning is to prevent the mixing of blacks and whites. It's not about noise pollution; it's about segregation.
    - mistrial9 2y ago
      this is misinformation -- zoning is complex; basically it appears that "if zoning was ever used to separate minority neighborhoods" then it becomes "zoning is to prevent mixing of races" Let's be perfectly clear -- racial segregation is illegal in the USA; zoning has many implementations, many uses, many pressures and has baggage from historical situations

dani__german 2y ago

[flagged]

toomuchtodo 2y ago

You're not wrong, but it will take decades to fix American urban development, if ever at all. Today, Amazon could use the US postal service for last mile delivery, which delivers six days a week and has systems in place for large scale shippers to deliver parcels to the closest hub. The choose not to, in the same way they squeeze their fulfillment workers as hard as they can. They want to make a logistics robot that does not require humans.

bombcar 2y ago
Amazon will use the postal service when it's the "best" option available (decided by some supercomputer AI somewhere, probably). What Amazon is deathly afraid of, and is a reality, is Walmart dropping stuff off at people's houses. The local Walmart provides next-day (sometimes same day if ordered early enough) free delivery of most anything non-perishabale they have in stock. Walmart already has the neighborhood warehouse, they just had to add a delivery driver or two. 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart. That could eat Amazon up and spit it out almost overnight. They know it, too. And the batteries and toothpaste from Walmart are almost certainly not counterfeit.

wodenokoto 2y ago

Here in Dubai, I have 2 or 3 corner stores within maybe a hundred meters of my residential tower and 9/10 purchases for groceries are through a delivery app.