=> "Paris’ Haussmann apartments are usually either very close to shops, or built right above them:"
Just a small Parisian note: this charming street isn’t actually Haussmannian 🙂 The buildings here are older—likely late 18th to early 19th century—so they predate Haussmann’s redesign of Paris. Fewer floors, simpler façades, and irregular alignments give it away. Still very classic Paris, just a different era!
That said, you're absolutely right that Haussmannian buildings were designed to include ground-floor shops—they played a key role in activating the street and supporting urban life!
> No more permits for sidewalk tables and chairs—putting $2,500 back in the pockets of small businesses and saving them valuable time…No more permits and fees to put your business name in your store window or paint it on your storefront…No more trips to the Permit Center to have candles on your restaurant’s table…No more rigid rules about what your security gate must look like so businesses have more options to secure their storefronts…No more long waits or costly reviews for straightforward improvements to your home, like replacing a back deck
Jesus Christ! How did these busybodies who thought any of this was a good idea in the first place get put in charge of anything? I don't think anything is really going to change without a wholesale change in leadership. The type of person who comes up with this stuff will just come up with new rules to replace the old. Maybe DOGE is right. Just fire them all and ask questions later.
It's a method to allow further influence of specialized groups. The more input is required on a process the more they can iterate on it. Special interests rule the day in SF, oft guised as 'giving a voice'.
That certainly plays a part in a lot of regulation, but I think the stuff listed is too petty for any influential group to put real effort into enacting. I think this is more of a homeowners association problem. The type of people who get involved in this type of local politics are just mainly unpleasant busybodies. This is one of the main problems I see with the "abundance agenda" that Noah talks about. They assume that our current state is the result of an intentional philosophical choice by leaders, and that they can be convinced to change it if they are persuaded that it is ineffective. But I am convinced that it's actually a fundamental personality issue and it's simply the wrong class of people in leadership positions.
“Small businesses are not economically efficient, but they create some positive externalities for cities.”
Noah, what do you think of doing a whole post on positive externalities? I find it easy to understand negative externalities and how theoretically they can be addressed by pricing them in either explicitly or implicitly but it would be edifying to learn more about positive externalities — which are the most important ones and how can they best be addressed.
Japanese zakkyo buildings are hard to build in cities even those with less restrictions than San Francisco.
Fire codes don’t allow external staircases and usually require two enclosed stairwells with fire doors.
External signs jutting into street with lighting are rarely allowed (I guess San Fran is letting shops put their name in the window or painting it on a flat wall are a start).
Elevators have all kinds of regulations that require them to be big and expensive, and must meet ADA rules
Strict liquor licensing laws prevent the common izakaya/tavern/bar usage which are common zakkyo tenants.
Parking requirements and setbacks are prohibitive
The open stairwells for access will soon become trash dumps and homeless/drug shelters
Cooperation among tenants to keep up shared areas probably needs force of contract instead of common courtesy as in Japan
All valid points, but I think implied in the article is that many of these regulations are themselves the problem. I'm not an expert by any means, but I've heard people like Matt Yglesias talk about things like changing fire codes around the 2-stairwell rules and allowing smaller elevators, and I think there's plenty of room for give on external signs. While these kinds of regulations seem important for safety, I think they don't get reevaluated much to see if they actually improve safety (especially as other trends/technologies change). And the parking and setback rules are also commonly discussed as areas for reform.
Plus I don't think liquor licensing rules really do much in themselves to discourage bad behavior; people would be better off just trying to regulate the worst of that with better public safety enforcement, then let a more varied commercial-residential landscape and more liquid housing market facilitate self sorting for anyone bothered by things like noise. Which gets to your last two points - obviously drugs/homelessness are concerns that should be addressed in their own right and not fall to whoever is on the ground in any given area to simply guard themselves against. But if there were a bigger constituency for maintaining shared areas and neighborhood stability, even if some of that is enforced or encouraged through contract, then people would be more willing to engage in the kind of economic activity that Noah describes which in turn provides more resources to maintaining it.
Not that I think this would be easy, or is even particularly likely to happen. Reforms are hard when people come to think within the confines of the system, and the current level of decline in state capacity is not encouraging for what a post-reform regime would look like. But it's still useful to provide a vision of specific goals beyond the vague "cool, walkable cities" that most urbanists argue for.
One of the few downsides I did notice in Tokyo. And you don't see disabled people out and about as much in Tokyo either - whether they solve it in another way or have better health or hide it - I don't know.
They do have ADA like rules, but they seem to apply mostly to public infrastructure. If you walk around urban areas in Japan you no doubt have run in to (or had your rolling bag wheels get stuck on) the yellow rubber strips with bumps that run down the center of sidewalks, which are for helping blind walkers, but may hinder wheelchairs, which would also have problems with steep curbs, random light poles and other obstacles. There are also distinctive melodies for street crossings based on direction and bee-boop alternating signals to indicate the clear direction. I haven’t seen any guide dogs (or other support animals) in Japan. Most train stations now have elevators, but some only fit the smaller wheelchairs common there. I haven’t seen mobility scooters either, but lots of older people have small walkers with a unique design that has a shopping basket below and a seat for resting. Buses and trains have priority seats for elders/pregnant/disabled people, and can accommodate wheelchairs, but lifts aren’t common, so I guess the drivers do manual assistance.
"'Shops. The missing piece in our urbanist discussion."
I am not entirely sure who you talk to in your urbanist discussions, but around here shops are a major part of urbanist discussions, as well as local politics where shopkeepers often have significant standing through some local interest group. And it's totally interlinked with the parking and access debates, mixed use, everything.
Many agree that shops are nice, small shops included, or maybe especially those. Yet what they have also discovered in this 30-40k inhabitant city near Brussels is that keeping big chain stores and city redevelopment out of the city center can also be problematic, as big chains do draw a crowd. And now all these cute little buildings are sitting empty because small shops don't weather through economic downturns as well, and can't compete with the internet or are too small to give sufficient income to shopkeepers (and, unsurprisingly, local landlords have underinvested in maintenance & renovations for years while cashing in huge rents).
A recent discussion was about whether or not to extend a park onto what is now a parking lot, and the main argument against was 'shopkeepers and market vendors wouldn't survive if there is even less free parking than is now the case'.
Just had this same discussion in our small semi-rural town in Northern California. Took a major street in the downtown and converted it fully to walking (an outgrowth of the outdoor dining during the pandemic). The problem is that the city didn't really get its act together on improving the nearby parking, so it made it harder for a lot of our elderly population to get to the shops (and we have an older population than most).
And our public transport is poor at best. So, what is basically a good idea and very walkable few blocks doesn't work as well as it should because the city didn't do the rest of their homework. (leaving aside that they needed to learn from European cities to have proper shade/trees in the walking area as it gets too hot frequently).
When in Northern California in the 1980s I lived in Mountain View in an apartment near downtown and always liked that although the main drag (Castro Street) had some parking, most of the parking was in city lots behind the business area, which made shops and restaurants (including a medium sized grocery store and cinema) have good sidewalk access with tables and seating, and the parking lots let more people walk along the street than just the local residents. Haven’t been there in a while, so not sure how it has changed.
I’ve lived in two cities who have done this and in both cases it hurt local businesses (with the local chamber lobbying to eliminate it). Basically they trade the customers that want to specifically go to that business to park in front and then buy something or eat something immediately for customers who are tourists ambling around window shopping. The funny bit is that the tourists were always walking there anyway (as these places are tourist towns) and what they lost was local custom who didn’t want to have to park far away and walk. They were interested in buying quickly and conveniently rather than admiring the pedestrians ambling around. They already know what downtown looks like.
On the other hand, as a visitor these areas are quite fun and do improve the atmosphere. Just does not improve sales at local businesses.
Sadly, I have come to see America through the lens of a different movie. W.A.L.L.E., the dystopian remnants of a failed world, specifically. The floating chairs that the survivors use have grown too far. By far, the scene that made me giggle the most was the spaceship carrying Eva, wth WALLE hanging on for dear life, leaving Earth and running into near space filled with broken satellites. Prescient, considering space junk is becoming a real problem.
The latest insult to America’s can-do past is the problems with air traffic control. What it is emblematic of is something known as deferred maintenance. It happens in cities, states, school boards. America is one big beautiful trash bag of deferred maintenance.
Flint didn’t have the money to repair their water pipes. Bridge maintenance gets deferred. Our politicians are afraid to ask for tax increases so this is what you get. Nothing is done until a crisis arises, which usually means that whatever is broken will cost double what it should.
Let me give you an example: the gas tax. It has never been increased. Americans don’t like high gas prices. It just so happens, however, that the gas tax was the reason our interstates would be repaired or extended. It was how bridges got rebuilt or renewed.
Now I can tell you the problem. Over the years, government regulations on gas mileage standards have been continually raised. This meant less gas tax collected. EVs don’t pay a gas tax. This is why such a tremendous amount of money was needed for infrastructure spending.
So, what we got was deferred maintenance until it failed. The same thing is happening with our debt and deficit. Our politicians fully understand that deficits at $2 trillion and the cost of servicing our debt is unsustainable. Since populists want to do popular things, raising taxes is not something politicians do. Our debt is under deferred maintenance, or what is known as sticking one's head into the sand and hoping the bad things will go away.
Yes, shops make cities nice to walk around, but not if human waste is on the street, or needles and drug paraphernalia. If hookers and drug dealers have the run of the streets. If police are afraid to do their jobs, lest they be criminally charged. Cities end up ghost towns as some politicians give in to the laissez-faire attitude that everybody gets to do their own thing.
Hey but the house GOP is now fixing the gas tax, not by increasing it (not populist) but by adding a new federal annual $150 “surcharge” for electric vehicles and hybrid cars, because instead of just removing a distortionary subsidy, they also want to punish efficiency.
I think to really support highway maintenance with a user fee in a fair way we should just have a higher excise tax on tires, but if those got too high automakers would come out with tank track vehicles to avoid it.
It seems like the "government" already has put their thumb on the scale... to the benefit of large and chain stores.
When difficult regulations make it so only large and chain stores have the resources to deal with them, or create an environments where only they can thrive, that is a grossly unbalanced situation.
When it comes to leveling the playing field that is one possible solution not “the” solution. It's a libertarian dream. The problem with that dream and why it has never come close to coming true is that libertarians have a fundamental misunderstanding about human nature. As people accumulate wealth (The winners) they accumulate power and they will use that power to rig the game.
The super wealthy and powerful don’t give a fuck about the invisible hand. The give the invisible hand the finger and break it’s knuckles. So it always has been and so it always will be.
I live in Tremont, a small neighborhood on the west side of Cleveland, and we have a (in my view) Brooklyn-esque atmosphere. We're not NYC, nobody thinks that, but the area is quite walkable with lots of restaurants and small shops nearby. Shops struggle a but, but it's pretty quaint and different for Ohio. It's all about the building types and the zoning.
Isn’t this a chicken and egg situation where you need density to make these small, inefficient shops effective?
You’d expect New York to do better here, but it isn’t actually doing well on this front anyway with many storefront vacancies. And even before that the complaints were that banks and drug store chains were most of the retail in many areas. Hardly the stuff of indie shop dreams.
Perhaps Japanese city dwellers don’t engage in e-commerce at anything like the same scale as Americans?
E-commerce (mostly Amazon and Rakuten) is about the same in Japan as the US (around 15%) and telephone shopping by TV was always popular there too. Some differences are Seven Eleven and other combinis do delivery, but are also more common, clean, consistent and modern and with better selection than NYC bodegas (no cats though) and Uber Eats has lots of delivery by bike and backpack, which I don’t think is as common in the US.
Also, there are also shotengai (covered walk/bike shopping streets) with lots of small shops and restaurants scattered throughout urban areas, and yokocho areas near transit stations with lots of tiny (usually less than 10 seats or standing only) bars and restaurants jammed into a side street.
Density definitely helps, but lowering the revenue threshold - either thru licensing or less regulations- could also be effective. Basically, making it cheaper and easier to open up shop means less density can support your business. I think if food trucks as an example of this - no to low rent, less permits required, and much less revenue needed to support their business model.
Japan has, especially in Fukuoka where I am right now, yattais which are the precursor to food trucks, and are hand pulled carts that appear on sidewalks at dinner time, each with 3-8 stools and a propane cooking area where the proprietor cooks up ramen or takoyaki or what have you. Super low cost (because of the competition) but low overhead (no employees, no rent, low licensing fees).
Density definitely helps, but lowering the revenue threshold - either thru licensing or less regulations- could also be effective. Basically, making it cheaper and easier to open up shop means less density can support your business. I think if food trucks as an example of this - no to low rent, less permits required, and much less revenue needed to support their business model.
> And five floors of apartments don’t house enough people to support a whole floor of retail: a two-person household living in a 600-square foot apartment only creates demand for ten square feet of urban retail.
The housing density and ratio of housing to retail for a 5-over-1 looks about the same as the pictured Haussmann apartments or Brooklyn neighborhood - i.e., three to five floors of residential over one floor of retail. I know this wasn't the only factor mentioned in the quote from Alfred Twu (the other factors being location within the city and shape/layout of the retail space), but I would think it's the most important - if the residents drive retail demand, that would win out over time even in a formerly industrial area, and retailers will figure out how to use the oddly shaped spaces. So is it just a matter of time before 5-over-1s become more like the Haussmann/Brooklyn examples? Or are the habits of residents to commute for their shopping keeping the situation stuck in some sort of metastable position with insufficient retail locally?
Q: "The missing piece in our urbanist discussion"?
A: Any piece of urbanist propaganda that DOESN'T include the (seemingly mandatory) word "vibrant"!
Personally, I'd just as soon skip the poodle-walk to the corner store, and drive to Berkeley Bowl -- or to the diverse array of mom-and-pop eateries in those reviled strip malls. And (heresy of heresies!) I'd gladly trade the congestion of The Bronx to live a short drive from Jones Beach.
It's "sprawl" only when you're looking down on it. Don't believe the hype!
You are lucky - most malls that I have been around don't have "mom-and-pop eateries" or a Berkeley Bowl anywhere nearby. I might have had the same viewpoint until I spent significant time in Tokyo - the variety of shops in walking distance is impressive - and the neighborhoods are completely walkable (or bike - lots of people of all ages on very simple "beater" bikes to go to the store, etc).
My comment specifically referenced "those reviled strip malls." Try looking around Milpitas or El Cerrito or Dublin (CA) -- or Buford Highway in Atlanta, or Houston's (suburban) Chinatown. Then zoom out to incorporate every metro (and plenty of exurbs) across the US. You can start in San Jose or the San Gabriel Valley, or for that matter, in much of Queens.
While you're at it, check out the produce at Berkeley Bowl, or the live seafood at H-Mart or 99 Ranch -- and compare the selection (and quality) to that corner store.
No poodle-walk there for you? That's your fetish -- and your loss.
Having just returned from a trip to Japan, I could not agree more with the topic of this post. Shopping is among the many joys one finds in visiting Japan (and Paris is the same)!
One of the things I think your analysis should add in diagnosing the plight of the US retail environment, though, is the cultural affinity that Americans have toward low costs. One can argue who is responsible for the obsession with rock-bottom prices which have allowed big chains to squeeze out small businesses, but it is a fact that definitely plays a role, exacerbated now by free shipping for shopping online. Without a change to this mindset, I fear that the lovely shopping experience of the past is not likely to return, even without the needed reforms you highlight.
Plus One to what Noah offers us in this post. Three years ago we moved about 1.5 miles into a downtown Bethesda moderate rise condo. We now have shops, restaurants, and stores within walking distance as well as a DC Metro stop. The whole area has undergone a dramatic change since I move here in 1978. Getting freed from having to drive is wonderful!!!👍
Spare a thought for small chain stores. There is a French retail company called Carrefour with a large and not particularly successful hypermarket business, in out.of.town malls. It has a much more interesting and successful operation of small city-centre supermarkets called Carrefour Express. You can find these all over the place in France and Spain, and clearly fill a need. They usually keep quite long hours. i don't know what the ownership model is, but the company clearly provides efficient logistics for fresh foods - including in tricky pedestrian zones -, a reliable range of own brands as well as market leaders, and skills in fitting in to existing small sites.
Yeah, Marks & Spencer and Tesco have lots of small groceries in lots of neighborhoods in London, chain stores with good selection and small enough to be walked to.
Having been to Tokyo a couple of times in the last few years, I was blown away by the small retail that is embedded everywhere in the housing. Makes it incredibly walkable and easy to go out and get whatever you need without giant stocking up trips....
Noah's past articles on Tokyo hit the nail right on the head. I am generally not a big city person (more semi-rural), BUT I could live in Tokyo if I could speak Japanese - amazing city (although a bit bureaucratic at times).
Great article, thanks !
=> "Paris’ Haussmann apartments are usually either very close to shops, or built right above them:"
Just a small Parisian note: this charming street isn’t actually Haussmannian 🙂 The buildings here are older—likely late 18th to early 19th century—so they predate Haussmann’s redesign of Paris. Fewer floors, simpler façades, and irregular alignments give it away. Still very classic Paris, just a different era!
That said, you're absolutely right that Haussmannian buildings were designed to include ground-floor shops—they played a key role in activating the street and supporting urban life!
Ahhh gotcha! Thanks!!!!!
Came here for this!
> No more permits for sidewalk tables and chairs—putting $2,500 back in the pockets of small businesses and saving them valuable time…No more permits and fees to put your business name in your store window or paint it on your storefront…No more trips to the Permit Center to have candles on your restaurant’s table…No more rigid rules about what your security gate must look like so businesses have more options to secure their storefronts…No more long waits or costly reviews for straightforward improvements to your home, like replacing a back deck
Jesus Christ! How did these busybodies who thought any of this was a good idea in the first place get put in charge of anything? I don't think anything is really going to change without a wholesale change in leadership. The type of person who comes up with this stuff will just come up with new rules to replace the old. Maybe DOGE is right. Just fire them all and ask questions later.
It's a method to allow further influence of specialized groups. The more input is required on a process the more they can iterate on it. Special interests rule the day in SF, oft guised as 'giving a voice'.
That certainly plays a part in a lot of regulation, but I think the stuff listed is too petty for any influential group to put real effort into enacting. I think this is more of a homeowners association problem. The type of people who get involved in this type of local politics are just mainly unpleasant busybodies. This is one of the main problems I see with the "abundance agenda" that Noah talks about. They assume that our current state is the result of an intentional philosophical choice by leaders, and that they can be convinced to change it if they are persuaded that it is ineffective. But I am convinced that it's actually a fundamental personality issue and it's simply the wrong class of people in leadership positions.
The “giving voice” cripple Biden administration attempts to build electric car chargers.
This is the solution to any problem. Get rid of the bad people and the problem will be solved.
“Small businesses are not economically efficient, but they create some positive externalities for cities.”
Noah, what do you think of doing a whole post on positive externalities? I find it easy to understand negative externalities and how theoretically they can be addressed by pricing them in either explicitly or implicitly but it would be edifying to learn more about positive externalities — which are the most important ones and how can they best be addressed.
Will do 🫡
Hey, what about VAT?
Japanese zakkyo buildings are hard to build in cities even those with less restrictions than San Francisco.
Fire codes don’t allow external staircases and usually require two enclosed stairwells with fire doors.
External signs jutting into street with lighting are rarely allowed (I guess San Fran is letting shops put their name in the window or painting it on a flat wall are a start).
Elevators have all kinds of regulations that require them to be big and expensive, and must meet ADA rules
Strict liquor licensing laws prevent the common izakaya/tavern/bar usage which are common zakkyo tenants.
Parking requirements and setbacks are prohibitive
The open stairwells for access will soon become trash dumps and homeless/drug shelters
Cooperation among tenants to keep up shared areas probably needs force of contract instead of common courtesy as in Japan
All valid points, but I think implied in the article is that many of these regulations are themselves the problem. I'm not an expert by any means, but I've heard people like Matt Yglesias talk about things like changing fire codes around the 2-stairwell rules and allowing smaller elevators, and I think there's plenty of room for give on external signs. While these kinds of regulations seem important for safety, I think they don't get reevaluated much to see if they actually improve safety (especially as other trends/technologies change). And the parking and setback rules are also commonly discussed as areas for reform.
Plus I don't think liquor licensing rules really do much in themselves to discourage bad behavior; people would be better off just trying to regulate the worst of that with better public safety enforcement, then let a more varied commercial-residential landscape and more liquid housing market facilitate self sorting for anyone bothered by things like noise. Which gets to your last two points - obviously drugs/homelessness are concerns that should be addressed in their own right and not fall to whoever is on the ground in any given area to simply guard themselves against. But if there were a bigger constituency for maintaining shared areas and neighborhood stability, even if some of that is enforced or encouraged through contract, then people would be more willing to engage in the kind of economic activity that Noah describes which in turn provides more resources to maintaining it.
Not that I think this would be easy, or is even particularly likely to happen. Reforms are hard when people come to think within the confines of the system, and the current level of decline in state capacity is not encouraging for what a post-reform regime would look like. But it's still useful to provide a vision of specific goals beyond the vague "cool, walkable cities" that most urbanists argue for.
A great many Tokyo shops and restaurants would not be ADA compliant.
One of the few downsides I did notice in Tokyo. And you don't see disabled people out and about as much in Tokyo either - whether they solve it in another way or have better health or hide it - I don't know.
They do have ADA like rules, but they seem to apply mostly to public infrastructure. If you walk around urban areas in Japan you no doubt have run in to (or had your rolling bag wheels get stuck on) the yellow rubber strips with bumps that run down the center of sidewalks, which are for helping blind walkers, but may hinder wheelchairs, which would also have problems with steep curbs, random light poles and other obstacles. There are also distinctive melodies for street crossings based on direction and bee-boop alternating signals to indicate the clear direction. I haven’t seen any guide dogs (or other support animals) in Japan. Most train stations now have elevators, but some only fit the smaller wheelchairs common there. I haven’t seen mobility scooters either, but lots of older people have small walkers with a unique design that has a shopping basket below and a seat for resting. Buses and trains have priority seats for elders/pregnant/disabled people, and can accommodate wheelchairs, but lifts aren’t common, so I guess the drivers do manual assistance.
"'Shops. The missing piece in our urbanist discussion."
I am not entirely sure who you talk to in your urbanist discussions, but around here shops are a major part of urbanist discussions, as well as local politics where shopkeepers often have significant standing through some local interest group. And it's totally interlinked with the parking and access debates, mixed use, everything.
Many agree that shops are nice, small shops included, or maybe especially those. Yet what they have also discovered in this 30-40k inhabitant city near Brussels is that keeping big chain stores and city redevelopment out of the city center can also be problematic, as big chains do draw a crowd. And now all these cute little buildings are sitting empty because small shops don't weather through economic downturns as well, and can't compete with the internet or are too small to give sufficient income to shopkeepers (and, unsurprisingly, local landlords have underinvested in maintenance & renovations for years while cashing in huge rents).
A recent discussion was about whether or not to extend a park onto what is now a parking lot, and the main argument against was 'shopkeepers and market vendors wouldn't survive if there is even less free parking than is now the case'.
Just had this same discussion in our small semi-rural town in Northern California. Took a major street in the downtown and converted it fully to walking (an outgrowth of the outdoor dining during the pandemic). The problem is that the city didn't really get its act together on improving the nearby parking, so it made it harder for a lot of our elderly population to get to the shops (and we have an older population than most).
And our public transport is poor at best. So, what is basically a good idea and very walkable few blocks doesn't work as well as it should because the city didn't do the rest of their homework. (leaving aside that they needed to learn from European cities to have proper shade/trees in the walking area as it gets too hot frequently).
When in Northern California in the 1980s I lived in Mountain View in an apartment near downtown and always liked that although the main drag (Castro Street) had some parking, most of the parking was in city lots behind the business area, which made shops and restaurants (including a medium sized grocery store and cinema) have good sidewalk access with tables and seating, and the parking lots let more people walk along the street than just the local residents. Haven’t been there in a while, so not sure how it has changed.
I’ve lived in two cities who have done this and in both cases it hurt local businesses (with the local chamber lobbying to eliminate it). Basically they trade the customers that want to specifically go to that business to park in front and then buy something or eat something immediately for customers who are tourists ambling around window shopping. The funny bit is that the tourists were always walking there anyway (as these places are tourist towns) and what they lost was local custom who didn’t want to have to park far away and walk. They were interested in buying quickly and conveniently rather than admiring the pedestrians ambling around. They already know what downtown looks like.
On the other hand, as a visitor these areas are quite fun and do improve the atmosphere. Just does not improve sales at local businesses.
I love these kind of posts, especially the low level, specific policy discussions.
Sadly, I have come to see America through the lens of a different movie. W.A.L.L.E., the dystopian remnants of a failed world, specifically. The floating chairs that the survivors use have grown too far. By far, the scene that made me giggle the most was the spaceship carrying Eva, wth WALLE hanging on for dear life, leaving Earth and running into near space filled with broken satellites. Prescient, considering space junk is becoming a real problem.
The latest insult to America’s can-do past is the problems with air traffic control. What it is emblematic of is something known as deferred maintenance. It happens in cities, states, school boards. America is one big beautiful trash bag of deferred maintenance.
Flint didn’t have the money to repair their water pipes. Bridge maintenance gets deferred. Our politicians are afraid to ask for tax increases so this is what you get. Nothing is done until a crisis arises, which usually means that whatever is broken will cost double what it should.
Let me give you an example: the gas tax. It has never been increased. Americans don’t like high gas prices. It just so happens, however, that the gas tax was the reason our interstates would be repaired or extended. It was how bridges got rebuilt or renewed.
Now I can tell you the problem. Over the years, government regulations on gas mileage standards have been continually raised. This meant less gas tax collected. EVs don’t pay a gas tax. This is why such a tremendous amount of money was needed for infrastructure spending.
So, what we got was deferred maintenance until it failed. The same thing is happening with our debt and deficit. Our politicians fully understand that deficits at $2 trillion and the cost of servicing our debt is unsustainable. Since populists want to do popular things, raising taxes is not something politicians do. Our debt is under deferred maintenance, or what is known as sticking one's head into the sand and hoping the bad things will go away.
Yes, shops make cities nice to walk around, but not if human waste is on the street, or needles and drug paraphernalia. If hookers and drug dealers have the run of the streets. If police are afraid to do their jobs, lest they be criminally charged. Cities end up ghost towns as some politicians give in to the laissez-faire attitude that everybody gets to do their own thing.
Hey but the house GOP is now fixing the gas tax, not by increasing it (not populist) but by adding a new federal annual $150 “surcharge” for electric vehicles and hybrid cars, because instead of just removing a distortionary subsidy, they also want to punish efficiency.
I think to really support highway maintenance with a user fee in a fair way we should just have a higher excise tax on tires, but if those got too high automakers would come out with tank track vehicles to avoid it.
Overall agreed, but I'm not against either chain stores or larger stores.
And I'm not convinced government should put their thumb on the scale
They are hideous and hideous in the exact same way everywhere they are. Their largeness in particular creates a specific negative externality.
As a society we should absolutely put our thumb on the scale to encourage more diversity in the feel, look, taste, and sound of our lived environment.
Hard disagree.I like going to a change store where I know exactly what i'm gonna get
And I like going to a large store where I can get a really good deal
I would my traffic go to one costco than twenty little small stores
It seems like the "government" already has put their thumb on the scale... to the benefit of large and chain stores.
When difficult regulations make it so only large and chain stores have the resources to deal with them, or create an environments where only they can thrive, that is a grossly unbalanced situation.
The solution to that is to get rid of those burdensome regulations NOT put in new regulations favoring small businesses
When it comes to leveling the playing field that is one possible solution not “the” solution. It's a libertarian dream. The problem with that dream and why it has never come close to coming true is that libertarians have a fundamental misunderstanding about human nature. As people accumulate wealth (The winners) they accumulate power and they will use that power to rig the game.
The super wealthy and powerful don’t give a fuck about the invisible hand. The give the invisible hand the finger and break it’s knuckles. So it always has been and so it always will be.
We already have laws against actual anti competitive behavior, and it support those.
But usually what happens is collusion with the police power of the state.
That's wrong
I live in Tremont, a small neighborhood on the west side of Cleveland, and we have a (in my view) Brooklyn-esque atmosphere. We're not NYC, nobody thinks that, but the area is quite walkable with lots of restaurants and small shops nearby. Shops struggle a but, but it's pretty quaint and different for Ohio. It's all about the building types and the zoning.
Isn’t this a chicken and egg situation where you need density to make these small, inefficient shops effective?
You’d expect New York to do better here, but it isn’t actually doing well on this front anyway with many storefront vacancies. And even before that the complaints were that banks and drug store chains were most of the retail in many areas. Hardly the stuff of indie shop dreams.
Perhaps Japanese city dwellers don’t engage in e-commerce at anything like the same scale as Americans?
E-commerce (mostly Amazon and Rakuten) is about the same in Japan as the US (around 15%) and telephone shopping by TV was always popular there too. Some differences are Seven Eleven and other combinis do delivery, but are also more common, clean, consistent and modern and with better selection than NYC bodegas (no cats though) and Uber Eats has lots of delivery by bike and backpack, which I don’t think is as common in the US.
Also, there are also shotengai (covered walk/bike shopping streets) with lots of small shops and restaurants scattered throughout urban areas, and yokocho areas near transit stations with lots of tiny (usually less than 10 seats or standing only) bars and restaurants jammed into a side street.
Density definitely helps, but lowering the revenue threshold - either thru licensing or less regulations- could also be effective. Basically, making it cheaper and easier to open up shop means less density can support your business. I think if food trucks as an example of this - no to low rent, less permits required, and much less revenue needed to support their business model.
Japan has, especially in Fukuoka where I am right now, yattais which are the precursor to food trucks, and are hand pulled carts that appear on sidewalks at dinner time, each with 3-8 stools and a propane cooking area where the proprietor cooks up ramen or takoyaki or what have you. Super low cost (because of the competition) but low overhead (no employees, no rent, low licensing fees).
Density definitely helps, but lowering the revenue threshold - either thru licensing or less regulations- could also be effective. Basically, making it cheaper and easier to open up shop means less density can support your business. I think if food trucks as an example of this - no to low rent, less permits required, and much less revenue needed to support their business model.
> And five floors of apartments don’t house enough people to support a whole floor of retail: a two-person household living in a 600-square foot apartment only creates demand for ten square feet of urban retail.
The housing density and ratio of housing to retail for a 5-over-1 looks about the same as the pictured Haussmann apartments or Brooklyn neighborhood - i.e., three to five floors of residential over one floor of retail. I know this wasn't the only factor mentioned in the quote from Alfred Twu (the other factors being location within the city and shape/layout of the retail space), but I would think it's the most important - if the residents drive retail demand, that would win out over time even in a formerly industrial area, and retailers will figure out how to use the oddly shaped spaces. So is it just a matter of time before 5-over-1s become more like the Haussmann/Brooklyn examples? Or are the habits of residents to commute for their shopping keeping the situation stuck in some sort of metastable position with insufficient retail locally?
Q: "The missing piece in our urbanist discussion"?
A: Any piece of urbanist propaganda that DOESN'T include the (seemingly mandatory) word "vibrant"!
Personally, I'd just as soon skip the poodle-walk to the corner store, and drive to Berkeley Bowl -- or to the diverse array of mom-and-pop eateries in those reviled strip malls. And (heresy of heresies!) I'd gladly trade the congestion of The Bronx to live a short drive from Jones Beach.
It's "sprawl" only when you're looking down on it. Don't believe the hype!
You are lucky - most malls that I have been around don't have "mom-and-pop eateries" or a Berkeley Bowl anywhere nearby. I might have had the same viewpoint until I spent significant time in Tokyo - the variety of shops in walking distance is impressive - and the neighborhoods are completely walkable (or bike - lots of people of all ages on very simple "beater" bikes to go to the store, etc).
I call foul!
My comment specifically referenced "those reviled strip malls." Try looking around Milpitas or El Cerrito or Dublin (CA) -- or Buford Highway in Atlanta, or Houston's (suburban) Chinatown. Then zoom out to incorporate every metro (and plenty of exurbs) across the US. You can start in San Jose or the San Gabriel Valley, or for that matter, in much of Queens.
While you're at it, check out the produce at Berkeley Bowl, or the live seafood at H-Mart or 99 Ranch -- and compare the selection (and quality) to that corner store.
No poodle-walk there for you? That's your fetish -- and your loss.
A(n electric) car in every garage!
Having just returned from a trip to Japan, I could not agree more with the topic of this post. Shopping is among the many joys one finds in visiting Japan (and Paris is the same)!
One of the things I think your analysis should add in diagnosing the plight of the US retail environment, though, is the cultural affinity that Americans have toward low costs. One can argue who is responsible for the obsession with rock-bottom prices which have allowed big chains to squeeze out small businesses, but it is a fact that definitely plays a role, exacerbated now by free shipping for shopping online. Without a change to this mindset, I fear that the lovely shopping experience of the past is not likely to return, even without the needed reforms you highlight.
Plus One to what Noah offers us in this post. Three years ago we moved about 1.5 miles into a downtown Bethesda moderate rise condo. We now have shops, restaurants, and stores within walking distance as well as a DC Metro stop. The whole area has undergone a dramatic change since I move here in 1978. Getting freed from having to drive is wonderful!!!👍
Spare a thought for small chain stores. There is a French retail company called Carrefour with a large and not particularly successful hypermarket business, in out.of.town malls. It has a much more interesting and successful operation of small city-centre supermarkets called Carrefour Express. You can find these all over the place in France and Spain, and clearly fill a need. They usually keep quite long hours. i don't know what the ownership model is, but the company clearly provides efficient logistics for fresh foods - including in tricky pedestrian zones -, a reliable range of own brands as well as market leaders, and skills in fitting in to existing small sites.
Yeah, Marks & Spencer and Tesco have lots of small groceries in lots of neighborhoods in London, chain stores with good selection and small enough to be walked to.
Having been to Tokyo a couple of times in the last few years, I was blown away by the small retail that is embedded everywhere in the housing. Makes it incredibly walkable and easy to go out and get whatever you need without giant stocking up trips....
Noah's past articles on Tokyo hit the nail right on the head. I am generally not a big city person (more semi-rural), BUT I could live in Tokyo if I could speak Japanese - amazing city (although a bit bureaucratic at times).