
How Far Can You Get From McDonald's? - mikeocool
http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds/
======
jasonkester
Back when Starbucks first exploded to such ludicrous levels that you'd
sometimes find two of them sharing a single parking lot, the expectation
became that there would _always_ be a Starbucks nearby.

So much so that when I tried to drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles early one
morning, I was surprised, then baffled, then amazed, then outraged that there
was no Starbucks at all on I-10. I spent nearly 4 hours driving with _no mocha
in me at all_ , and was likely a hazard to other drivers.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that somebody had driven off the road on that
stretch and sued Starbucks for negligence in not providing the requisite
number of restaurants per square meter that its customer base had come to
expect.

Fortunately, they've now put one in Blythe, so the drive is much less
perilous.

~~~
twoodfin
Starbucks' expansion was interestingly "clumpy". Not surprising, I guess, when
you realize they have to deal with the same supply chain issues as anyone else
in a similar space. They didn't open a freestanding store in Tulsa until 2002,
years after seemingly every other corner in Manhattan had one.

~~~
patio11
Starbucks also has a very sophisticated siting operation which predicts demand
similar to how an oil company predicts oil. For green fields, you measure
proxies, look at formula based on historical data, and guess. If you sink one
well and hit a gusher, though, your expectation of profitable exploitability
in the vicinity goes WAY up, so you start going nuts.

You'd think that two Starbucks across the street would cannibalize each other,
but you'd be betting against very smart people who have made this their lifes'
work and been richly rewarded for succeeding at it.

Source: anecdata from my father, who works in commercial real estate and
thinks they (and Walgreens) are the two savviest businesses he's ever worked
with in his industry.

P.S. A software solution to turn any arbitrary firm into Starbucks would be
worth tens of millions of dollars if you sold it correctly. Billions if you
went the next step and started flipping properties based on the software.
(e.g. "101 Main St. on foreclosure auction for 200k, predicted value to a
banking customer is 1.2 million, expected cost to work deal is 200k. Placing
bid now.")

~~~
itmag
_You'd think that two Starbucks across the street would cannibalize each
other_

Speaking of that, would they operate as two competing entities? Or would they
help each other out? Ie lend each other supplies, direct overflow customers
across the street, refrain from price wars, things like that.

~~~
twoodfin
Freestanding Starbucks stores aren't franchises, so they have every incentive
to coordinate for maximum benefit. I'd be surprised if SBUX management had set
up any incentives for it to work any other way.

~~~
itmag
Interesting.

Even if they were franchises, there might still be some game-theory advantage
to cooperating. After all, a happy customer at one Starbucks is going to be
positive toward all Starbuckses.

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Tossrock
This post is from 2009, he updated it in 2010:
[http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-
mcdon...](http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds-
sept-2010/)

He also visited the spot [http://www.datapointed.net/2010/10/the-farthest-
place-from-m...](http://www.datapointed.net/2010/10/the-farthest-place-from-
mcdonalds-lower-48-states/) which makes for a pretty entertaining tale.

~~~
davidw
The followups are nicer than the original one, and I think that, in spirit, NW
Nevada/Southern Oregon are a better fit for 'far away' places. The desert out
there is very high and lonely, in a hauntingly beautiful sort of way. It's
also extremely _empty_.

One place in particular that merits a visit is Steens Mountain - you can drive
most of the way up it and hike around. The view from the top is amazing - you
can see for miles, and there are very few signs of people visible.

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rhplus
I think this visualization would be far more interesting at the city level. At
the country level, it's basically a map of population density. At the city
level, I think it might reveal much more about demographic differences between
neighborhoods and also do a much better job at highlighting key transit
routes/hubs.

~~~
chimeracoder
Yeah, in all honesty, that graph looks not too different from a map of lights
at night (proxy for population density).

------
tzs
> Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of
> generic convenience?

An interesting kind of related question is to ask what is the farthest you've
ever been away from other humans.

For most of us, we've never been more than a few miles from others.

I've read that the record is probably held by one of the Apollo astronauts who
remained in lunar orbit while the landing party landed.

~~~
tocomment
He should have said "raises the question". " begs the question".means assuming
the conclusion of your argument.

~~~
vacri
Common usage has it the other way around - 'begs the question' does mean
'raises the question', simply because that's how it's used. That philosophical
jargon has it differently doesn't change that.

~~~
pessimizer
I'm usually sympathetic to that argument, but the origin of 'begs the
question' is philosophical jargon, and the misuse of it perpetually reproduces
itself from people hearing it being used properly, not understanding what is
being said, and trying to parse the phrase to figure out what it means.

Since the phrasing is anachronistic, there's really no chance that they'll
come up with 'asks you to accept as true' for 'begs,' and 'the conclusion' for
'the question.' But honestly, if you mean to say 'brings up the question' you
should just say it, instead of reaching for an anachronistic pithy phrase or
buzzword.

------
narcissus
I know it's not really related but still... this article reminded of the
section in the book 'Behind The Golden Arches' that discussed that although
many people think that there are too many McDonald's restaurants around, there
are still more car dealerships.

And how many times do you buy a car compared to a burger?

So this article claims around 13,000 McDonald's restaurants, and I just found
a page that claims 37,500 separate car and truck dealership franchises.

I don't know exactly what it is about those numbers that amaze me but every
time I think about it I'm gobsmacked...

~~~
jleader
When you say "separate ... dealership franchises", are you counting each
physical location once, or once per brand? Around here, many dealerships carry
multiple brands. Also, there tend to be multiple dealerships clustered
together (probably due to zoning, and tax incentives that some municipalities
offer), so they're not as smoothly distributed as McDonalds. Still, those are
amazing numbers!

~~~
narcissus
To be honest I just took the numbers from
[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_car_dealerships_are_in_Am...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_car_dealerships_are_in_America)
which claims to quote the National Automobile Dealers Association. More
completely that page says "more than 17,000 new car and truck dealers with
approximately 37,500 separate franchises" so even without the 'separate
franchises' the number is still higher.

But yeah, I agree that the numbers are amazing...

------
bryanlarsen
The place I grew up was 103 miles away from the closest McDonald's. There were
people there that would drive to McDonald's for breakfast.

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grecy
I grew up in rural Australia, and we used to host a ton of exchange students
from North America.

Driving from Melbourne back to my home town, there is a huge billboard saying
"Next McDonalds 100km" (60 mi.). Many times we would have to pull over so the
American exchange students could take a photo, as they were in disbelief they
were so far away from one.

On that same road you're easily 250km (130mi.) away, but there is no sign.

~~~
wisty
Most Americans have no taste-buds. They don't eat lamb, and prefer grain-fed
beef (which tastes like slightly gamey chicken) to grass-fed beef (which has a
much more ... beefy ... flavor). And don't even _think_ of offering them
kangaroo.

On the other hand, I'm sure there's some Minnesotan here, who'll tell me I'm a
wimp for not eating gopher. Regional US food rocks, but generic "US food" is
just bland.

~~~
commandar
>They don't eat lamb, and prefer grain-fed beef

That really has as much to do with cost as anything. Grass-fed beef can be
twice the price of grain-fed, and lamb's definitely not cheap, either.

~~~
chimeracoder
I'm surprised it's not corn-fed beef - corn's a lot cheaper.

~~~
commandar
Corn _is_ a grain.

~~~
chimeracoder
Sorry, read that backwards (grass vs. grain). My mistake.

------
jxcole
Not only is this an interesting factoid, but the author is also a very good
writer. I recommend reading the follow up articles.

------
bfe
I think his result might be wrong. It doesn't jump out at you from his map
since it's on an edge of the area, but it also has big voids on the northeast
corner of Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. If you examine carefully,
you can pick out Kinross, Gladstone, Escanaba, Marquette, Iron Mountain,
Ironwood, Ashland, Duluth, Two Harbors, Hibbing, Eveleth, Virginia, and
International Falls. That means the tip of Pigeon Point would put you a good
130 miles or so from the nearest U.S. McDonald's in Two Harbors, Minnesota,
compared to 115 miles for the author's spot in northwestern Nevada.

The northeast tip of Isle Royale would be a little farther still, if you want
to count islands that are part of the lower 48. And the northeast tip of
Keweenaw County wouldn't be as far from the nearest McDonald's as the crow
flies, but might be the longest drive from any McDonald's, at 143 miles by
road from Marquette, in a loop around Keweenaw Bay.

I also found it interesting to compare the map defined by distance to nearest
McDonald's with a light pollution map of the lower 48, used to find excellent
dark sky locations for setting up one's telescope. McDonald's and light
pollution largely overlap in tracing population density and major highways,
but McDonald's is also overrepresented relative to light pollution in isolated
areas that are popular vacation destinations. This jumped out as most apparent
in south central Utah, and also holds for Arizona and New Mexico. The
McDonald's voids are vast areas that are not only isolated, but also boring.

~~~
svonsvon
Indeed, the Arrowhead of Minnesota and Isle Royale are farther from the
nearest U.S. McDonald's, as the crow flies, but they're only about fifty miles
from the Micky Dee's in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

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imjk
From a cursory look, the plots just seems to correspond with population
density more than anything else.

~~~
Dove
Very closely, I'd say:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Population_density)

The major difference I see is the McDonaldses following highways in the
western states -- for example, look at the sparsely populated parts of
Montana.

And even there, it's possible that the McDonald's density matches the
population density. That's just not what's graphed.

------
ibdthor
What I find most striking about this map is that it is eerily similar to maps
of distance from or concentration of supermarkets in the US, which are fairly
commonly used after Ravenstein's human mobility studies to track things like
urban expansion. Simply put, this map would suggest to me that McDonald's has
become so entrenched that it actually serves as a reliable landmark for human
evolutionary and sociological studies. Which is frightening.

------
steve-howard
>Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of
generic convenience? And how would you figure that out?

I'm an insomniac much of the time. Some weeks/months I don't sleep until it's
light out. Out here in suburban Chicago, the only places still open to me when
it's late and I'm hungry are 7-11, McDonald's, and Burger King. So I'll take
"generic convenience," because it at least makes my life a little easier to be
able to get something resembling food when there's nothing else open.

(Yes, I could plan ahead and put things in my fridge and cook food. I'll get
back to you when I have the energy or the inclination to do that).

~~~
nawariata
Don't expect high energy when you munch on McDonalds, look into what proper
nutrition can do for your body and mind.

~~~
steve-howard
My energy level problems stem from something else, because I've not had any of
it since I was 12. Still trying to find the cause.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Maybe it's your diet.

~~~
steve-howard
My diet was very different before I got to college.

------
wtvanhest
I would like to see a similar analysis based on venture funded, active
startups. Obviously in the valley they are concentrated, but outside the
valley it would be an interesting analysis.

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GigabyteCoin
I can't find the source for the life of me, but I remember reading an article
about 6 months back that declared basically "there is not a single square foot
of land inside the continental USA that is considered 'silent' any longer".

In other words, no matter where you "go to get away" in the USA, you will
never truly leave the buzz of the city.

EDIT: Perhaps this is it
[http://geohazards.usgs.gov/staffweb/mcnamara/PDFweb/McNamara...](http://geohazards.usgs.gov/staffweb/mcnamara/PDFweb/McNamaraBuland.pdf)

~~~
kijin
I just skimmed that paper very quickly, and it seems to include wind and
water. If you count all the noises that nature makes, nowhere on the planet is
going to be "silent".

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learc83
I remember when I was a kid (late 80s early/mid 90s), and I'd visit my aunt in
California (I'm from Georgia). It seemed almost like a different country--
different stores, different architecture, different culture. The same was true
for rural areas closer to home.

Now everywhere I go, there's a Walmart, a McDonalds, an Applebees/Chilis/TGI-
Fridays, a BestBuy, a Staples/OfficeMax/Office Depot, and a Home Depot, or
Lowes.

The world feels a lot smaller.

~~~
dasil003
It still feels like a different country because it's happening globally. I
just moved to London and there's a fucking Whole Foods around the corner!
Closer in fact than it was when I lived in Mountain View, Santa Fe, or
Minneapolis (all big Whole Foods markets).

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jebblue
That was an entertaining but true and worrisome article, enlightening. When I
was in my 20's I might have thought wow, South Dakota needs more McDonald's.

------
jmilkbal
Subway became the largest restaurant chain in the world recently. Is it,
perhaps, more apt to ask how far one can get from one of them?

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techiferous
If you like maps like this and are from Boston, check out
<http://bostonography.com>

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clintboxe
Lol, I initially read the link as:

The United States, visualized by distance to the nearest McDonald's
(DISAPPOINTED.net)

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andersh
If you look closely you can see his coloring algorithm is broken. The
"spheres" of close restaurants appear to "squash" each other rather than just
intersecting. The result is grooves between restaurant spheres that should be
more brightly coloured. If anyone even notices this comment and replies to it,
I expect them to be disagreeing with me.

TL;DR: I can tell by the pixels.

~~~
dandelany
The algorithm isn't broken, the zones you're talking about are squashed
together to show you, at any given point, _which_ McDonalds is the closest to
that location. It's like a Voronoi diagram
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram>).

~~~
andersh
For a map intended to show the distance of points from the nearest McDonalds'
that isn't the best algorithm; equal pixel colour should => equal distance. I
was thinking it'd be cool if distance were represented by height, in a 3D
rendering. Also, make it a flythrough, with music :)

