[revolvingocelot]

I do like this idea, and other ideas like this, but can't help but observe that it's inducing a sort of functional privation without a corresponding counterbalance. We can't just work to "eliminate automobile usage in [...] suburbia" when suburbia's physical affordances don't really allow suburbanites to contend with anything else...

[davidw]

Sure, there's a lot going on. Another thing that we should do is re-legalize things like "neighborhood commercial". Things like corner stores or barber shops that people can walk to are functionally illegal in vast swathes of American suburbia. Part of what makes them difficult to build, even if you've solved for zoning, is oppressive parking mandates.

Books like https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines and https://www.brookings.edu/book/fixer-upper/ are decent starting points for more in-depth discussions of all this.

[frumper]

What makes them functionally non-starters is if I go to a corner store I expect that I'm paying 20-50% more than if I went to a supermarket and if I go to a supermarket I expect to pay 10-20% more than if I went to a big box store. Your solution is to not only make a network of less price efficient stores, but have me walk to those store three to four times as often. This doesn't even account for the increased truck traffic, through our neighborhoods, that has to deliver to all of these stores instead of the handful. It also will greatly limit the options of what is for sale at particular stores because serving 100 families versus serving 10000 families will have drastically less shelf space and not make low volume items worth carrying.

[davidw]

If they're 'non starters', then there is no need to make them illegal via zoning.

One just reopened near me, and it's been quite successful so far:

https://www.bendbulletin.com/lifestyle/bruno-s-6th-street-ma...

It's not just a store, sure, but the entire reason the commercial space exists is because it was a market before we got a zoning code making that sort of thing functionally illegal in most residential areas.

No one is saying you have to always go to the corner store, either. Who knows what the market would provide. They aren't high margin businesses. But at the very least, we should re-legalize them and see. This stuff isn't black and white: if you skip a few trips by going to a local barber, but still drive to work, that's still progress.

Where I lived in Italy, there was a smaller neighborhood grocery store we went to for most things. It was a little bit more expensive than the big box one, but not the kind of corner store prices you're talking about. They had fresh fruit, veggies and meat, so I often stopped there to pick up some things to make dinner with, nice and fresh, rather than a weekly run to Costco or something, as is more common in the US.

[frumper]

They haven't been illegal anywhere I've lived. A few survive, but none thrive. Mostly they seem to get by selling drinks and to smokers.

[davidw]

Try and set one up in most US suburbs and then get back to me. In other words: look at your city's zoning map. They're not allowed in most places in most cities.

[frumper]

My previous post explained why I thought it was a terrible business plan and I mentioned my city has them and your response is to try it?