The Beauty of Neighborhood Cafes and Corner Stores
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 เม.ย. 2024
- Scattered around Seattle are glimpses of how much better a suburb can become when cafes and corner stores are integrated into the neighborhood.
Sources:
King County Parcel Viewer
gismaps.kingcounty.gov/parcel...
Nat Henry's App Close
close.city/?x=-122.329&y=47.6...
Yonder Cider
• Seattle cider maker to...
• Seattle City Council t...
• Seattle Sips: Yonder C...
Seattle City Council passes bill bolstering support for home-based businesses
council.seattle.gov/2023/06/2...
OneSeattle Plan
www.seattle.gov/documents/Dep...
www.seattle.gov/documents/Dep...
Further Reading/Watching
The Great Good Place
www.amazon.com/Great-Good-Pla...
Designing Urban Places that Don't Suck (a sense of place)
• Designing Urban Places...
my neighborhood corner store is the bedrock of my life. mr kim will sell me a spiced coke and a bag of chips any day of the week from 10am to 8pm and he's like max 500 steps away from my front door. I don't have to walk on a busy city street to get to a gas station or the grocery store, I don't have to drive, I get to see my neighbors. idk how I survived before I lived here tbh
At mine they sell bags of coke and spicy chips!
You live near Kim's Convenience Store?
As you've stated, they're an excellent low-pressure way to meet and stay in contact with your neighbors. Some people come into a neighborhood and try and "force" a community, but it invariably ends up that some people are annoyed by it (or the people trying to force it are shitheads themselves) and then it becomes a whole drama. But with neighborhood markets you have the ability to see and stay in-touch with your neighbors but there's no expectation like there would be with an organized gathering so you can chat for as long or as little as you want. Bellingham, WA has stumbled into a similar situation as Seattle where most neighborhoods have some sort of convenience store within walking distance, but most neighborhoods now also have a brewery or similar drinking establishment also within walking distance which act as even better community gathering places.
Yeah I live in a walkable Main Street and while it has its problems (car traffic from suburban commuters being undoubtably my main issue) I LOVE the proximity to so many nice shops. There will be a cafe opening soon on my block. Love to see it.
Same here in Portland! I love my corner store!
A hugely underrated aspect is that a lot of these zoning rules have transferred wealth and an opportunity to conduct business from individuals and family businesses and transferred it to conglomerates and huge companies. You’ve hit the nail on the head!
It's not coincidental
@@makeart5070 not at all!
i.e., Those zoning rules are capitalist in nature. Capitalism is when wealth flows from the poor to the rich.
@@denelson83 exactly! There’s a reason why it’s such a fight to undo them. It ties itself to a lot of major industries, especially Canadian ones with some heavy political power
@@uomouomouomouomo And I am Canadian.
In Japan-style zoning, every residential street can become a shopping street, and therefore, new builds usually have some retail features. This contributes a lot to the character of Japanese cities since it allows some really niche hobbies to be realized as places.
I thought of Japan towards the end of the video. :) I think this type of zoning is exactly what adds to the charm that draws people to Japan (whether they realize it or not).
many American cities have euclidean zoning, meaning land use is strictly limited to a single use as zoned. however, some progressive cities are approving non-euclidean zoning which recommends a land use but permits alternative land uses as well
As someone from the UK, people living above stores and cafes is extremely common. You can walk down any high street and find residential units above shops
Our suburbs were built fast, and the promise was "creation of middle class wealth" - much different set of incentives, pushing us towards homogeneous zoning.
Sounds cute
If you are from the UK then you can essentially see what happened to the US back then happening in the UK now with a bunch of house developments popping up making middle class single family residential districts under the excuse of fixing the housing crisis while ignoring the fact that the housing crisis mainly comes from a demand for low income housing
although UK is against 15 minute cities so we have a lot of shops to close
@@contrapunctusmammalia3993 turning the phrase "15 minute city" into a conspiracy about the government controlling where people go to create an Orwellian dystopia will remain as one of the most insane things people have wasted time creating
Surprised Dollar General was not mentioned. It's the cursed blessing of any small town lacking an actual corner store.
Had to go there a lot OTR trucking and it was awful for an ole East Coaster
Dollar General is still a big-box conglomerate and you'll never see one in a residential street because they require so much wasted land for obvious reasons. They're not always in walking distance, though they're literally everywhere in suburban and rural areas. They sell nothing but cheap and processed junk (which btw, get more expensive) and pay their employees as little as possible.
@@wturner777That is why it's called "cursed blessing". They are terrible yes but given the choice between starvation and buying there...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 True dat.
Every single suburb needs a corner store, one that is owned by a resident of the suburb, can be supplied by a small, quiet delivery van, and has no dedicated parking so as to encourage nearby residents to visit any way other than by car.
Every ten year old girl should get a pony too.
@@Geotpf Are you saying that because OP's suggestion is ridiculous or that you don't think 10 year old boys can't have ponies too?
Every corner store used to be a corner house. Let people transform their houses into what the community needs.
@@GeotpfAre you a tyrant? You're against freedom to open up a store?
@@Geotpf Are you seriously that car-brained?
I just luv the little neighborhood shops and cafes. They're so walkable, and everyone knows each other, including the owners. It is also convenient to go buy a quick grocery item at the little mini market down the street and make it back before your food gets too cold.
There's a town called Falcon Heights (basically a part of St. Paul but wtv) that was VERY well-known for having a tight-knit community, and the the thing that brought it all together was that basically it had its own little downtown that everybody walked to from their houses.
5:40 - Public libraries are public libraries. Just because teenagers are there doesn't mean others can't go.
Is the public library going to serve me alcohol and not shush me when I get loud?
I'm from the UK, and we have corner shops everywhere here. I've travelled to so many countries that don't have these, when you just need to buy 1 or 2 basic items but can't find a small shop anywhere. You end up having to go to a large supermarket in the centre of town. I know, first world problems and all that, but it's one of those things that you don't truly appreciate until they're not around!
UK resident, too. I spent three weeks with my sister in the suburban hell of Greater Toronto. The saving grace, however, was that there was a strip of single story shops to which she could walk, athough it did involve crossing a six lane road.
I'm still shocked that in the USA ban on easy gun access is considered as a major threat to American Freedom, but the fact that you just cannot open a shop or cafe in your own property is not.
Yeah, it's almost like an entire side of the political spectrum depends on motivating its voters and donors through emotional wedge issues like "FREEDOM" completely ignoring the freedom to build neighborhood shops, or you know, not be murdered by a mass shooter. But I guess that I'm just naive like that!
What? That literally makes no sense.
What if I wanted to open a gas station "on my property", are you going to support me on that or are you going to be in opposition?
You guys have such a bizarre concept of "shops and cafes", like it can just open up and not affect anything around it.
@@WillmobilePlus Well, why gas station? Normally such dangerous places are highly regulated, including distance to residential buildings, sizes of tanks and so on. We talk about small shop selling some food, or craft, or just start a place to sit and drink/eat. In most countries you can do that. Hence usually you have a convinience store in your walking distance, some takeaways and so on. If you have to drive to a bakery that mean you live in a village, not a town or city.
LOL NIMBYism 101
@@wawrzynieckorzen78 Our homes are much too spread out for just any residential home to become a shop and still earn a profit. Many subdivisions, such as my own, don't get much thru traffic. The streets have a tendency to just abruptly loop back around or dead end. That said, we have many tax regulations in place for home businesses, which do exist, however, these are generally not open to the public, but online businesses. Food for eateries in many places throughout the USA are required by health code regulations to be prepared in commercial kitchens, not home kitchens. You can't just use your home's kitchen to cook food for the public. You'd be fined. Every business is required to follow health code and fire regulations, occupancy regulations, etc.
Currently living in a neighborhood in North Seattle and oh my goodness it's so convenient being able to walk to a couple grocery stores, coffee shops, and restaurants! And with the light rail, pretty much so many more places around!
I live in Portland and have the exact same experience. Thank god they didn't tear down all of the old charming neighborhoods. But the few walkable neighborhoods left get pretty pricey.
I miss this aspect of urban living in Portland/Seattle. Just so much more lively local main streets. In southern California where I am now, every commercial street feels like a dense stroad.
There are two arguments I frequently hear against this idea. First is that they generate more traffic and require more street parking than a "residential suburb" is will tolerate. The other, which I see more often, is that this somehow means people will be living next to heavy industries or waste dumps. Of course the latter is obviously rediculous extream, but it is the "go to" argument used against zoning reform.
So I'm a civil engineer in Denver and I've actually worked on some Safe Routes to School projects in Green Valley Ranch and bike lane projects on the west side of Pena! Can confirm it is a car dependent sprawling suburban hellscape. The only saving grace from a transit perspective to that area is that roads like Green Valley Ranch itself have extremely wide ROW's with large medians that could eventually be turned into center running BRT or dare I say....Light rail
Save us civil engineering person
The neighborhood I lived in in high school was classic suburbia, on the edge of town, all single family homes. But shortly after we moved in, a grocery store opened up, less than 5 minutes walk away. It was smaller than a typical Safeway/Kroger type store, but bigger than a Trader Joe's. They had pretty much everything you might need. Before that opened, you'd have to drive 10 minutes to get to Walmart or Albertsons on the main stroad. It was so convenient and great.
Unfortunately haven't had the pleasure of living somewhere like that since. Right now the closest grocery store to where I live is a 5 minute drive (about 2 miles), but all on quiet neighborhood streets, no stroads, no lights, etc. Even that is a massive improvement over dealing with stroads and traffic. Not quite in reason walking distance though.
Sounds like perfect bike with a basket distance. Whatever is cheap and available is the perfect bike. The ability of bikes to reach out 2-3 miles farther than walking while being almost as convenient is why I think good biking infrastructure should be one of the first steps to moderating suburbia's car addiction.
@@martylawson1638 In all those years you still noticing whether you drive on quite street and 6 lane road ? I though with 3-4 years of experience the difference disappears. Actually, I prefer to drive on bigger road to my store, that on local ones, with all their speed limits, school zones and parked cars.
You’ve managed to perfectly describe Australian culture.
I live in Brisbane and there are hundreds of coffee shops and cafes dotted around the suburbs in old converted houses.
We incorporated the village lifestyle of the UK with every suburb having its own small commercial zone for your local butcher, baker, hairdresser etc. and the cafe culture of the more recent post WWII Greek and Italian immigrants to create an idyllic society.
unrelated but i have nowhere else to express this
HLA passed in LA wer are getting bike lanes guys
Where I live bike lanes don't exist. It's just sidewalks with huge cracks, or traffic going 45mph. Where would you ride your bike? With heavy traffic at up to 45mph? Yeah, no. I don't care if it's technically illegal. Everyone rides on the sidewalk. Officers will actually tell you to get off the road and on the sidewalk. Because that's your only option, there's no separate bike lanes, not even fake painted ones either, except for one on university campus but that's it.
Congratulations!
This is the exact same story in the inner suburbs of Sydney. All of the corner stores are pre-war. There's a big demand for them, but it's simply illegal to build them in most places.
2:13 Filling a hole in the neighborhood with something with a hole.😀👍
The zoning on the Mt. Bagel building is actually NC3, which does not permit retail uses. There are conditional uses for things like churches, schools, childcare facilities, fire stations, and similar non-commercial uses. The Mt. Bagel space is a "legal non-conforming use." Technically, if a non-conforming use is not used for 12 months, it goes away. As you travel around town, you will see some apartments that look like they were commercial spaces in old buildings. That's what happened to many of them. As an architect, I have never understood the mindset of zoning people. They always want to separate things. 'This goes here, that goes there.' Obviously we don't want factories next to houses, but small retail uses are definitely compatible with residential uses. They don't see it that way.
Fortunately, the City of Seattle is moving toward allowing small commercial uses in residential areas again. The latest proposal I have seen is that they will typically be permitted uses on corner lots in residential zones.
That depends on the retail. If it is a food business, then it may put food odors into the air. People don't want to live near that. There was such a complaint in one of the suburbs near mine because a fast food place set up shop and the smell of fried food can be smelled all day/every day by residents of the suburb. I've been there. I've smelled it. It makes the air in it feel greasy, and it stinks. I'm glad that I don't have any eateries nearby me to smell up the place.
@@laurie7689 Nuisance ordinances can address that. It's not necessary to banish the other 90% of restaurants.
Fellow Seattleite here. Always enjoy cities with extensive old-school residential neighborhoods, like KC or Minneapolis(kinda suburbs that pre-date the classic G.I. Bill era) peppered throughout with rows of renovated shops/cafes/yoga studios/etc.. Places that were formerly their own little town/main street before being swallowed/incorporated.
My old neighborhood in Portland was like this with a local neighborhood store and cafe. There’s another neighborhood in Portland that I know that has a load of business. I mean a lot of businesses.
great video and great points! one thing...those aren't in suburbs! seattle suburbs don't start until shoreline in the north and tukwila in the south. neighborhoods are different. Sincerely, a life-long seattlelite
I also immediately thought "calling Wallingford or Ravenna a suburb is gonna make some people maaaad" lol
@@Keenan111yea he's right but calling sfh communities "suburbs" within the city definitely rubs ppl the wrong way around here for some reason lmao
One thing I love about most towns here in Australia is that almost every suburb has a local shopping centre or cluster of shops including things like a small supermarket or convenience store, cafes, restaurants, hairdressers/barbers and the like, and most of those are an easy 5 minute walk for most people living in the area so you can satisfy most of your daily living needs while getting a bit of exercise. I hope the "cities designed mainly for cars" mentality never takes hold here.
I know like all of these corner stores! Lighthouse roasters is right by my childhood home, me and the cousins went to Durn Good all the time, Ross Park connivence was great after little league baseball games, and I've never been to Seven Market and Cafe but I've been by it many times.
Immediately subscribed, love the Seattle content.
Toronto has a few residential streets with commercial grandfathered in. They are so incredibly vibrant and positive, creating community and safety for all the kids. It is crazy that we don't learn from best practices.
2:58 Man, all of these examples would be illegal pretty much in any other suburb. How sad :(
Finally some nuance on the suburb issue. We have that here in Australia. There's about 3 near where I live, and the modest density means that the suburb is also filled with birds and trees and other wildlife. We're only 30 minutes from the city too.
I love this is getting talked about!! My childhood corner store was such a gem.
YOOOOOOOO! I saw your screen cap and I used to teach down the street from that store in the yellow building off 17th Ave East in Seattle (Stevens Elementary). It is a perfect example of having shops and stores in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Thats why I love Seattle because it has tons of mini downtowns and commercial areas hidden in the middle of residential areas nobody else knows exists unless you live there.
It makes places in the city special because everyone doesnt have access to or know about them. Seattle has so many hills that hide lots of these little pockets of shops and restaurants in the middle of nowhere in the city. This is why I goto Lighthouse Coffee above Ballard because it's in the middle of a quiet neighborhood! Great coffee and ambiance
And Seattle and its lawmaking is hot garbage.
When I vacationed with my father who lived in Brunswick, Maine, there were a few of these, including Tess' Market, a family-owned corner market which carried a limited selection of grocery items alongside liquor, soda and snacks in addition to prepared food items in the form of sandwiches and pizzas. The corner market was located directly across from my father's old apartment building.
Seems very unhealthy. I forgot when I last bought a soda and snacks for home. Probably a decade ago.
Growing up in a working class neighborhood in Florida, people in some suburbs had businesses either on the corner, in their home, selling them on a street intersection (like flowers or fruit), or in vacant lots. Were most of them legal? LOL No! Do people do it anyway? Absolutely🤷♂️ they still do it around my childhood home (an elderly couple selling junk food to kids out of a van when schools get out, a lady who braids hair at her home, guy whose “mechanic shop” is just his home garage, etc.)😂🤷♂️
That store that only stocks dr pepper is a wonderful idea. That should be a mandated thing in suburbs
Zoning changes to allow small businesses will not guarantee desirable businesses will open there. The available properties have to be available and affordable, and there must be a customer base. In my neighborhood, we have a commercially zoned area at the entrance, but it sits grassy and vacant because of its ridiculous asking price.
I agree, good, open zoning is need. But more importantly there needs to be a change in tax and regulatory structure to something that is not hostile to small businesses. Large corporations have dictated the regulations to make it nearly impossible for a regular person to start their own business, that it gets more difficult every day. Almost like the powers that be don't want people starting their own businesses, like we all must remain serfs working for the machine.
@@peterbelanger4094 That's correct. Big government, corporations, and media all make life difficult for anyone who's not a player in that system. They want control over every aspect of our lives. Sadly, far too many people have been willing to oblige.
I read a New York Times article a few years ago that touched on this problem. The article said that developers planning to build a structure with ground floor retail would borrow from banks on the condition that the rental income from any unit would be at a certain minimum. The result of this was new luxury development all over the city with empty storefronts sitting there for months on end because the asking rent was too high. While the notion of the market's "invisible hand" might tell you that the rent must be lowered until a business is willing to pay the price, the unfortunate reality was the terms of the bank loan made it a violation to rent out spaces bellow a promised value because the property owner would be admitting that the estimated income underlying the loan was not possible. The pressure from banks now in place, it became a better business decision for building owners to have commercial spaces that were high value on paper but languished unused as a blight on the neighborhood.
@@colinneagle4495 Which helps explain why in some places the buildings never even get built. I admit I'd rather have a grassy lot than a vacant strip mall.
This is very real. Zoning doesn’t change the economic structure. I know of a bookstore that had to close due to rising rent. The location remained vacant for five years until a new business moved in - a bookstore. It was a chainstore, but at least it was a small metro region chain (less than a dozen).
I grew up in a car centric suburb very similar to Green Valley Ranch in California and HATED IT!. My Grandmother lived in an early suburb from the 1910's and I was always fascinated by how you could just walk to the corner store for a soda and candy.
Fast forward to when I became an adult and moved to Capitol Hill in Seattle in the late 80's. Rents were still affordable (my rent was $300 in 1988) and I lived without a car very easily. I spent most of the 1990's living on Pike Street near Broadway until 1999, when I was priced out of Seattle and moved to Chicago (paying 2/3 the rent of Seattle). Again, I lived car free and would only live in neighborhoods where I could walk to get nearly everything I needed on a regular basis.
I did the same in Manhattan for ten years, and now Philadelphia. All cities which are easily walkable and it was only when I moved to Philadelphia that I owned a car for the first time in 30 years. A car which I drive about 4k miles a year because, it is much easier to walk to the nearly 75 restaurants within a 20 minute walk than find parking.
My worst nightmare would be to have to go back to living in a Suburban Hellscape and having to drive mile upon mile to get the basics.
Keep up the videos 👍
We really could use them here in Las Vegas. Codes are in the way.
Enjoyed seeing them at Columbia Heights Minneapolis.
Minneapolis is full of neighborhoods like this. I live in one (the Wedge).
The only thing is, my neighborhood isn't a suburb, it's a not-dense urban neighborhood. Once you get out to the real suburbs, especially any built after 1970, you get miles and miles of "tracted waste" cookie cutter housing developments.
The only places I know with good suburbs are in the Northeast, in what are called Colonial suburbs. There were small towns, usually 200+ years old, that became populated enough to become suburbs when cars and highways came in. They are wonderful places, I raised my kids in one.
Dentist and Doctor medicine shops is also a must in neigbourhoods around 3 a 9 Kilometers.
Change the laws and allow people to open stores, restaurants, bakeries, etc. in/out of their garages and you will see the neighborhood transform into what it should be, a community.
Like he said :)
Big corpos want it to be too difficult for some regular person to start up a business that may potentially compete with them. They have lobbied the system to do their bidding and lock us out.
Corner stores are just so charming and bring a lot of character to any neighborhood. Really wish they were a common sight in suburbia
Somebody needs to shop there, for them to be viable
As an architecture student one reason I got into it was to build more walkable communities. In Cities like Spokane, WA that is passing re zoning laws to allow for higher density on single family lots I don't see why we can't pass an ordinance that would allow homeowners in certain areas to convert their lot into a corner store or a group of homeowners to make a whole corner re-Devlopment. It would need to be a case-by-case basis and require some creative writing for it to work right and limits. like.
-No chain stores.
-Must not eliminate housing, housing to be replaced should be built into the new design.
-Design and proposal must be approved by all resident household in a .5-mile radius.
-No special zoning changes granted within a 1.5-mile radius of already approved zoning change.
-Waiver of parking space requirement.
-No weird things like turning your ranch house into a 7/11 or a questionable Bar.
I would like to run one.
Feel like i can provide to people
That’s cool :0, just gotta find a supplier y’know
"Why not have several cafes within the neighborhood that people can walk to?" Because people will endlessly complain and moan about how there are TOO MANY COFFEE SHOPS! XD
Lol I couldn't resist saying this. Anytime a new coffee shop looks to open in my area, that is the main complaint I hear from people... though the complaint is more frequent when its a chain suburbia coffee shop instead of a local coffee shop or cafe... It's almost like people'd prefer a local coffee shop opening, maybe even as a corner store kinda thing... Oh wait...
I live next to a damn 711 (no gas pumps) in a southern California suburb that serves as a great neighborhood convenient store because it's on a tiny lot with minimal parking anf surrounded by apartment complexes. I miss the quieter neighborhood main streets in Seattle and Portland though. Way more charming than most where I am now.
North Capitol Hill really has some beautiful little neighborhood shops!
At least you had some parks growing up. My suburb only had houses. "Luckily" we had a lawn big enough to play 2v2 in various sports. No sidewalks tho. Any store was at least a mile away. Now I live in the middle of town next to a Mexican restaurant that I go to when I "can't drive" at night. Gas station and convenience store are just a few blocks. So nice where I can just walk and not waste gas on a quick trip.
I got family in a tiny town in Mexico. A friend there had a store in her garage selling drinks and snacks. That would never be allowed in the "land of the free".
its funny too because you have allegedly pro-free market and pro-small business right wingers who look at things like street vendors as features of a third world country lol
Yep, it would be in violation of the health code if they were home-made snacks.
@@laurie7689 yeah I'm in favor of allowing these kinds of corner store or home businesses to exist, but obviously they do need to be regulated
@@laurie7689
If.
capital IF.
In Toronto, EVERY store that sells pop [aka "soda"], big or small, sells Dr. Pepper. It's one of the basic brands, along with Coke, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and numerous brands of root beer. This seems to be true everywhere in eastern Canada, except that in Quebec Pepsi mysteriously outsells Coke. Jamaican-style ginger beer is extremely popular in Toronto, but less so outside the metropolis. There are several local brands of it. What I usually have trouble finding is a childhood favourite: birch beer. That's usually produced by small companies, and often commands a premium price.
I grew up one block from the cafe featured in the thumbnail of this video. As a kid, it was a convenient store. My friends and I would take our allowance down to the store and buy candy with it. When I was older, it turned from a bodega-style mini-mart to a fancy neighborhood cafe. I could go in there and see someone I knew every time.
I feel bad for kids now whose only social contact happens at school or online. I’m grateful to be part of the last generation who didn’t grow up with social media.
Ironically in Phoenix (that’s not a typo- by Central Ave) I can walk to 2 grocery stores, Copper Star Coffee, a bike shop, other bars, and light rail. Even in sprawling cities, you can have local neighbourhoods where you can walk for almost all shopping needs.
I am not sure what you would call them, but I will call them mom and pop parking lot restaurant boxes. These are basically very small businesses which mostly provide some sort of food service out of a shall shed type of building or a trailer style fast or special food or drink service provider. Most of them are little coffee or taco style grab and dash places. They are popping up most often on the corners of major arterial intersections but more and more you are seeing them open up on parking lots of older run down strip malls and stores which often have established residential neighborhoods surrounding them or close by. Many of them are becoming popular local spots and seem to have a fairly constant population of customers attending them.
I see these facilities as a gateway to reestablishing the type of community walkable centers you are referring to in this video.
Vancouver Washington in the older neighborhoods often have corners where there are the small stores like you have in this video. They ware mostly little 7-11 like grocery stores and some are specialty taverns or small restaurants.
I recently have been discovering more of these little gems in my area.
I just moved back to my childhood suburb in Houston after living in a walkable neighborhood in Austin,, and let me tell you... the lack of a third place is already starting to crush my soul, and I've only been back for 3 weeks.
In the PH 🇵🇭.....we call those Sari Sari Stores💪💪💪
and I am thankful we have those. no need to drive just to buy one ingredient
Shoutout Take 5 Urban Market in Ballard 🔥
Imagine having a street barbecue party or a worldcup event where all these street corner stores are open for all social interactions and the revenue these smaller businesses can make would be quite the ideal small business grab..
i love this
The Dr. Pepper tirade was unexpected, I laughed, but I also wholeheartedly agree
Sincerely, a fellow Dr. Pepper fan
"If someone wanted to get a coffee, or a hot chocolate (the more cultured beverage)"
yeah you just earned a subscriber right there
Korea has small stores in middle of neighborhoods all over the state. it shocked me when I explored the state and found them. it was awesome and I thought it was a brilliant idea.
I went to college in Tacoma (just south of Seattle for non locals) and I lived on my own for several years in a apartment above an old corner store. The problem was the old business space was no longer zoned for commercial and it was impossible for the storefront to be rented out to any business of any purpose. Because the first floor had big windows facing the sidewalk, no one wanted to live in the space either since there’d be zero privacy. For all these reasons, the space remained vacant the whole 4 years I lived there, providing no use to the community at all.
I grew up in an apartment on a main road in a South Jersey suburb, and I didn't realize until I was older, just how dense, mixed-use, and walkable my particular town was. Literally within a 2-4 block stretch we had several convenience stores, a car wash, restraunts, barbers, a gas station, a liquor store, a bar, tax prep, a dentist, a vet, and a mechanic. However just off of my stretch of road were quiet tree-lined streets. A mile in either direction were some more shopping centers including grocery, schools, churches & temples, and a friggin amusement park. Add to all this that there was frequent bus service that quickly took you to a mall, the county library, movie theaters, and a rapit transit into Philly and I was downright spoiled.
Yeah, we could have used some contiguous sidewalks and bike lanes, but there is no reason that all suburbs can't be like this.
Same with me in the suburbs of Chicago, almost every suburb has a downtown with a regional rail line, and a few other strips of walkable business districts. And most of the suburbs here are walkable and have good transit access ,
One nice thing about the subruban neighborhood business thing is it could balance out some of the dynamics of businesses only being on arterial streets and possibly the noise and neighborhood social dynamic issues on arterials brought up by Don Appleyard's livable streets.
It would be interesting for your example to study what businesses were on busier arterial streets vs. more within (e.g. yonder cider in phinney ridge, vespucci pizza in ballard)
One community really good for this is Ann Arbor, MI. Lots of mixed spots like this
I'm lucky to live in what used to be a streetcar suburb (they ripped up the streetcar tracks in the 1960s). It's about 100 years old and it's filled with third places and small shops. I can live car-free and walk or bike to everything I need. It's pretty cool. . .
FYI: I was recently at FEAST buffet in Renton and it did, indeed, have Dr. Pepper on the fountain. It was only $30 for lunch and two hour ride by LRT, 11 bus and RapidRide, too!
That’s it, I’m going to Mount Bagel today😡 Need me some corner store love🤠
I live on NE Portland and it was one of my main reason i love it
Grocers schools and cafes all
Over
All
Walking distance
Local bakerys, butcheries, ice cream shops, laundromats, diners and sandwich shops need to make a comeback.
One of my favorite Planning topics. Thanks for a great video. The Dr. Pepper servers list was too funny also. In Texas, we have a good supply, but I do hate when I wind up at a Pepsi product only restaurant. Of course that does get me to drink more water.
Right on! I want to open a cafe in my garage!
It's wild to me that Green Valley Ranch is PART of the City of Denver.
Video about urbanism and walkability: *ends*. Car commercial starts playing. Well well well.
here in argentina we have local stores for almost anything
There was a statewide bill proposed in Washington state just last session that would have allowed corner stores and small businesses in residential neighborhoods. Its sponsor was a Republican from Eastern Washington. Unfortunately it died but hopefully comes back in the future. The Urbanist had an article about it.
U.S. and Canada convenience stores are serene and at time interesting like for example 7-Eleven, delis and other Asia.
미국과 캐나다의 편의점은 세븐일레븐, 델리 및 기타 아시아 편의점처럼 조용하면서도 때로는 흥미롭습니다.
I am sad that, especially in Northern Europe, digitalization has almost killed corner stores, kiosks, cafes and brick-and-mortar stores which were just revived with difficulty when online shopping started to decline department stores, malls and shopping centers and freed up the market again for smaller shops. But now digitalization has caught up with them too and they are closing their doors because in the first place, business spaces becomes expensive and unprofitable for companies because high rents, and in the second place people order now everything online to save time and avoid other people. For example, a new phenomenon that is growing in popularity is the so-called digital cafes, i.e. instead of the cafe being a physical place where you go to drink coffee with friends, the cafe is just an online store where you order your coffee order delivered to your home via the courier service such as Wolt or Foodora. But I miss the mid 2010's and the late 2010's renaissance of corner stores and others and I'm not one of those who are happy that the cities have become quieter and more peaceful after almost everything has moved to the internet but I didn't initially like the idea that the internet should be the replacement and heir to physical social hubs, even though it is a financially cheaper option.
Yeah, I order online as do my adult kid and her friends. Although, if they want food, they'll order it via app and go get it themselves. They don't order it delivered to them.
St Louis city still maintains a lot of it's historical zoning and on top of that it is a multi use zoning city. I came across a corner adjacent property recently on Zillow that was set up for commercial use on the first floor but a single bedroom apartment on the second. Checking the zoning map revealed that it allowed most basic commercial uses by right in addition to any level of residential density. We have the ability to recreate this in many other cities, but zoning needs to be reverted to how it was handled before cars. Allowing multiple uses by right and only limiting uses where absolutely necessary.
One really important part missing from this conversation isn't that life in the suburbs is 'less convenient' because it requires a car to do basic tasks - people adapt to their situation quite well actually, people living in the suburbs will bring all the basic tasks to themselves!
Buy a coffee machine, buy coffee in bulk, stock groceries for a month or two in advance - some people will even buy little playground sets to put in their backyard, because real playgrounds are too far away.
From the individual's perspective, this might even look MORE convenient than having a store near your house, you have one inside your house! But from the society's perspective, we're duplicating resources, appliances, and the land required to store them for every single home instead of sharing and centralizing these things.
Laundromats used to be incredibly common in most cities - now, a utility room complete with a washer-dryer is expected even in high-density apartment buildings, because the luxury of having one costs less to provide than the amount not providing it would knock off the selling price. Imagine how that tiny room, and the cost to produce everything in it, scales up across thousands of properties, sitting vacant for 90% of the week.
Suburbanism isn't always perceived as inconvenient to the individual - but it's always a massive waste of space, energy, and resources for the society.
I absolutely won't live anywhere without a washer/dryer. Who wants to spend hours every week sitting in a loud, dingy laundromat?
Yes, we are duplicating these things, BUT I DON'T LIKE TO SHARE. I prefer to own my things and use them myself. I'm not willing to share with other people. I'm the type of person who will take the ball home instead of letting other people play with it. I don't live for the sake of society. I don't like people as a general rule.
Take5 on 8th Ave is another excellent example of a convenient and walkable neighborhood cafe and shop.
The crazy thing is, allowing a small commercial or mixed-use building on a corner would do almost nothing to change the “character” of a neighborhood while being absolutely game changing for the neighborhood. It’s just crazy how these things are illegal in most places, and people would absolutely flip if you tried to change those laws.
I would love a tutorial video of how to navigate your city’s zoning and turn a property into a residential grocery store/café. Obviously each city has its own workflows on how these things get done, but you could explain the general hierarchies and what functions different city entities and officials have in the process of viewers potentially converting their property into mixed-use.
I love the Volunteer Park Cafe (the cafe on the thumbnail)! Unfortunately, the Cafe is not allowed to use its garden area (backyard) very often, due to pushback from a few of the neighbors. But it still has customers throughout the day, with people who know and interact with each other.
5:55 You’re really hit the nail on the head right here
Volunteer Park Cafe has the best bacon egg and cheese in Seattle, love that place
Yonder Cider getting closed down was a damned tragedy. It was the perfect little indie bar within walking distance of my apartment.
I hope you don't mind me asking but when people say walkable what exactly is meant?
Since for me I walk places roughly 2 miles from where I live without much thought (and a right foot that's never quite been the same since I landed on the springs of the trampoline in High School trampoline practice) but I'm also trying to be active, did a lot of walking with bags (sometimes in the rain) when I was younger as part of leafletting (and had planned on the distinct possibility of a career in the army which didn't end up happening) so I don't know if there's a different scale being used.
Garage businesses are great. There are quite a few businesses in the Melbourne CBD that operate in former garages in the alleyways. It really adds to the culture of the city, but sadly these are only in the city centre instead of everywhere.
When you say your from Green Valley ranch it sounds like you are from like a Hidden Valley commercial, when you have neighborhoods like Ballard, Capitol Hill, Queen Anna etc. it sounds like a real place lol
On a more serious note, I wish there were more neighborhood shops. My city has a few here and there, but most of them are either downtown or in a suburban shopping plaza. And on that note, the ones in suburban shopping plazas tend to replace the previous big name chain brand.
Minneapolis is pretty good for corner places, at least in the older neighborhoods.
Just one thing, You are not talking about suburbs. You are talking about neighborhoods in the city. Kirkland, Redmond, Shoreline, those are suburbs of Seattle. And well deserved shout outs to Irwin's and Durn Good
In most countries outside the US and Canada, even suburbs and middle-class gated communities have corner stores and bakeries.
Was hoping youd touch on this yrs WA state legislative session and the neutered neighborhood cafe bill. Kemper Freeman basically killed it lmao, there are articles on the urbanist
Dr Pepper fan!!!
10:40 "parking spaces" it doesn't specify for what kind of vehicle ...
hot wheel parking
I respect the search for Dr. Pepper
The problem is that people use the car to commute to a far away work place and do their shopping somewhere along the way home. Once they've reached their driveways, they don't feel the need to visit a corner store by foot. I guess that's why the demand for cafes and corner stores in suburbs is low. You would need a rollout of gyms, stores, restaurant, culture venues to make a neighborhood interesting enough for walkability but the low density of suburbs does not provide enough potential customers.
When I worked at a movie theater, I wanted to have an election for sodas. So customers could vote and decide what they wanted. Not some corporate schmuck deciding we need to have 4 different varieties of coke. I know the Dr. Pepper thing wasn't the main thesis of the video, but here we are.
For soda pop, have you heard of Tahiti Treat?
@@eugenetswong no...what is it?
@@erinrising2799 It's like cream soda, but it has a different taste. I asked because I thought that you might be able to help me find it. No worries. Thanks.
@@eugenetswong I'll keep my eyes out for it
@@erinrising2799 Thanks! It would be nice to revisit flavours of my past.
If I want just a simple can of beer or soda it's a 3-mile round trip and I barely live outside the city core.
I’ve been wa ting me own for a while and even if I have to use my trailer for starters to set up my science shope
I want to make the point that a house and small retail space are an efficent use of land. And probably better for the tax base. I live in a very traditional outer ring suburb very close to a big retail mall. The big mall is dying. (Big anchor tenants like Sears are gone) We have big box store malls around it (ex. Target) which also have smaller retail stores and fast food resturants located near them. The problem is we have several half empty malls and lots of lots of empty parking places. This has to be a tax problem as we are no longer maximizing revenue with a bunch of empty parking spaces and half filled big traditional malls and half filled strip or big box malls. The big mall near me is building rental apartments and a senior citizen apartment complex in what was an empty parking lot. . This may be the future for us car dependent suburbs to essentially consolidate malls and put rental units in and some small retail stores in these empty parking lots. If they build out far enough I will be able to walk to a store instead of crossing a large empty parking lot.
3:00 it's great that you're in Seattle now, but it's time that you learned that we tend to groan at people pronouncing it as eXpresso (it's supposed to be eSpresso). Fantastic vid though; wholeheartedly agree.