
Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods - apsec112
https://www.fastcompany.com/90530672/with-downtowns-staying-abandoned-put-tiny-businesses-back-into-residential-neighborhoods
======
madamelic
Mixed use zoning is just about the best case situation for everyone.

\- Less reliance on cars, which results in less parking, which results in less
traffic... it becomes self-perpetuating.

\- Better walkability

\- Knowing your corner store clerk or at least having a rapport with them

\- Healthier citizens, due to them walking everywhere (Go to NYC and see how
few overweight people you see... not many unless they're tourists. I gained
like 10lbs after I moved out of NYC, you get exercise constantly in that city)

\- Happier citizens, due to them walking everywhere, things are nearby, their
life is more integrated...

etc etc.

I think basically all spaces should be residential / light business mixed.
This idea of sprawling suburbs with light business being 10 - 30 minutes away
is horrifying and bad for everyone health-wise, time-wise and economically.

\---

Where I live, the city doesn't really hesitate to shut down sections of roads
for festivals, farmer's markets, whatever.

Currently we have a bunch of one ways because all of the restaurants took over
half the road for outdoor dining... and honestly, it's pretty nice. The
traffic is slightly more congested, but meh... don't drive through the center
of the city as a transit option, go around.

~~~
Spooky23
In theory sure.

In reality, the financial system is oriented towards big capital. My aunt ran
a coffee shop that was established by grandparents in 1939. It was in the
lobby of a office building in he central business district of our little city.
The building was bought by a Chinese investor. Like other similar stores, her
rent went up 5x and she shuttered.

I live in a mixed use urban neighborhood. 50% of he storefronts are vacant or
populated by death businesses like karate dojo’s.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The problem is people want to call it "mixed zoning" but still have Karens on
the central planning committee making stupid rules, e.g. they'll have
"businesses" next to "residences" but a given plot will be explicitly
designated as one or the other.

What you really want is the small businesses which start off being operated
out of the proprietor's residence. A hair salon in a converted living room, a
restaurant serving food from the owner's home kitchen. Something that can
start off as a side business yet can advertise without getting into legal
trouble and grow into more if it's successful.

You get a few of those in an area and someone decides it's a good place to
knock down a house and put up a five story building with condos on top and a
coffee shop and a bakery on the ground floor.

You have to let it grow organically like that or you just end up with
abandoned "commercial" buildings because businesses fear moving in when they
know their success would lead to increased rents as a result of the limited
amount of designated-commercial real estate in the area.

~~~
brobdingnagians
Can anyone explain how the term "Karen" isn't both racist and sexist at the
same time? I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago, and now it seems
everyone is using it to refer to a certain kind of "middle class white woman".
A term like that to describe a certain kind of middle class asian or black man
would be very offensive. Are the days where we try to exercise civility and
empathy gone? It feels like society has gone from "let's tolerate people" to
"let's ridicule people we don't like, without logical argument".

Blaming the disappearance of tiny businesses in residential neighborhoods by
saying "It's all those middle class white women" seems both very shallow and
specious.

~~~
xvedejas
I don't disagree that this hazard is real, but I also see the term used in
non-racist, non-sexist ways too, sometimes with disclaimers that "obviously
this isn't just white women and not all white women are like this". I realize
I am likely in the minority thinking that context matters, but I want to
provide my sincere stance that I think it's sometimes reasonable to call
someone a Karen, assuming proper care is taken not to imply anything sexist or
racist. I understand the term as meaning "busybody" more than anything else;
in fact, you can use it to describe a person of any race or sex but you cannot
use it for a non-busybody.

~~~
bbarnett
The problem is, people used to have non-gender, non-racial terms for people.
For example, a person might be called an 'asshole' or 'bonehead', and this
could be a person of any colour, any sex, age, etc.

Yet now, it seems all sorts are labeling people based upon sex, colour, ethnic
background, etc. It is, quite literally, the definition of sexual, racial, age
discrimination. It is linking "external characteristic" with "way a person
acts".

I don't care what anyone's political stance is, but if you are using terms
like 'Karen', you are 100% contributing to sexism, racism, etc.

Just call someone what they are. "Asshole" has worked fine for millennia.

~~~
TeaDrunk
From what I understand the specific behavior is actually and intrinsically
linked to the idea of a white woman in America and has historically existed
for quite a while among black circles (from the 1800s at least). Discussing
Karen as if it’s new belies the actual history of it. [0]

0\. [https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/891177904/whats-in-a-
karen](https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/891177904/whats-in-a-karen)

~~~
bbarnett
What a weird assertion, when you link to an article that asserts something
entirely different.

The above NPR, states that a Karen is a _new_ label, started in the 2010s
(which is just last year, even). It also shows how the Karen label is
different from other, prior labels.

It delineates how a Becky is different, a "Miss Ann" is different.

We've historically had labels like this for people, which are racially linked.
But this is 2020, this is a NEW label, and other NEW labels keep popping up.

We need to collectively STOP this. No more racist, sexist, ageist, anything-
ist labels. It's all wrong.

(Not saying you were defending label use... just clarifying my position)

~~~
TeaDrunk
I’m arguing that the idea of a karen is not new, sorry to be unclear.

~~~
bbarnett
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs)

Slurs are not new. And as I mentioned, what you showed were not Karens, but
'white women who act poorly in certain ways'.

"Kaben" has unique connotations, a specific meaning. While I agree that "white
women have had slurs" before 'Karen', I'm going to have to disagree that it's
germane here.

------
rland
When I visited Japan, I went to an izakaya with room for maybe 9 people in it,
it was smaller than my living room at home. I was hungry and I saw the sign
lighting the alley about 40 yards off the main road. I was thinking at the
time, if I lived in that area, you bet I'd be there a couple times a week to
talk to my neighbors. I wanted to ask those inside if they were all neighbors,
because they seemed to know each other and the barman well. It felt almost
intimidating, since I don't know any Japanese, but of course Japanese
hospitality is top-notch.

~~~
oftenwrong
The cities in Japan are, of course, walkable in the extreme, but what really
impressed me there was the suburbs and rural villages. Even deep in the
countryside many people still can visit local businesses without a car. I
think it is not a coincidence that it is so common there to see children
walking or biking on their own to school.

~~~
m_mueller
Btw. the US is probably more of an exception when it comes to children being
driven to school. Swiss kids tend to walk themselves from age 5 to 6 upward,
schools are usually within 30min of a child's walk. But Japan is certainly
special thanks to very liberal zoning laws. Even in rural areas it's common to
find warehouses and small shops right next to or beneath homes. Europe's laws
are somewhere between Japan and the US, and so is the walkability. Turns out,
just allowing humans to try things will make markets solve this issue.

------
toastal
This ends up being one of the biggest reasons I enjoy living in Thailand. The
unplanned layouts of cities makes for a colorful and convenient experience
everywhere you go. Most every building in towns is at least two stories with
shops under the tenant's quarters. You also can't forget about the prevalence
of street carts for food and other small things. It's usually worth exploring
alleys as there will be some curious little shop or restaurant. It doesn't
match my you-must-have-a-car, strip-mall experience in the US.

You can contrast this to Laos where the LPDR has focused on zoning on new
development. One example was ປາກເຊ, Pakse, where multilane roads were built
whigh probably not be fully utilized for another 50 years. When you go to a
residential area, there's much less businesses. From what I gathered, the
government there was looking across the Mekong at it's developing sister
country and is trying to 'correct' her mistakes when trying to emulate growth.
However, there's much more beauty in allowing the natural chaos.

~~~
hnarn
> Most every building in towns is at least two stories with shops under the
> tenant's quarters.

Compare this with modern (past five/ten years) architecture in Sweden:
concrete, "modern" flats with zero expression that mostly are composed
_entirely_ of residential units. You might literally see a block of 8-10
buildings, maybe five stories high, that has _one_ commercial unit at the very
end of one of the buildings. It's ridiculous.

This type of architecture is killing newly produced areas completely
unnecessarily, and I suspect it's because the one time income of selling a
flat is preferred over the monthly income of renting to a business.

------
aahhahahaaa
How did we slip away so far from this being fairly obvious? Cities have worked
well this way for hundreds of years.

Maybe the industrial revolution made cities too unpleasant? Were we too
spoiled by the automobile industry and government roads? White flight from
cities into the suburbs?

~~~
smoe
Never been to an US residential area and only "know" them from tv shows. Are
they really pretty much completely devoid of businesses as this article
indicates? No grocery / mom and pop stores, bars, restaurants, hair dressers
etc.? That sounds very inconvenient. I always assumed you'd get some basic
commercial everywhere.

~~~
osdiab
I grew up in a wealthy American suburb, the nearest grocery store was a 40
minute walk from my home, and I would have looked like a madman for simply
walking on any street in the entire city because literally only beggars don’t
ride cars. I’m glad to be living in Tokyo now!

~~~
rsynnott
Do people not even walk for leisure/exercise?

Just reading this makes me feel kind of claustrophobic.

~~~
gamechangr
Yes for sure Americans walk for leisure and casual exercise.

It's popular to imply Americans don't walk. It's true the culture is more
pragmatic (why walk when I could drive and get more done), but it's not true
that it's unusual to see people out walking on sidewalks, parks, and lakes.

My neighborhood has a walking trail around a small lake (takes 45 minutes to
do a lap). There are 20-50 people walking it at almost anytime of day.

~~~
presentation
Maybe in your region but in suburban Cleveland it certainly is freakish to see
anybody on their legs outside of a shopping mall.

------
rgacote
I've found that it is typical for people who run these small types of
businesses also live in the neighborhood, or close by.

Another improvement is that people who both live and work in the community
have time for more community engagement, but it their children's schools,
local government, or local volunteer efforts.

Local businesses improve the community.

~~~
jamestimmins
The first chapter of The Death and Life of Great American Cities touches on
this topic a lot. Community safety is enhanced by mixed use, because there are
reasons for people to naturally be there at all hours of the day/night. This
contrasts with single use areas, which are essentially ghost towns in their
off-hours.

------
oftenwrong
The more people within "walking distance" the less need for a parking lot.
There are a number of successful businesses in my neighbourhood with zero
parking or minimal parking. Many customers can arrive by foot (or bike or
bus). Even a small scrap of land can be a prime location.

If you visit the outskirts of the city, there is a large difference. The
parking lot is like an ocean. After all, every customer must arrive by car.
You need a massive tract of land to have a successful business in such an
environment.

Next time you visit a business, pop open your maps app on your phone and look
at the satellite view. Note the size of the building in relation to its
parking lot. It is not unusual for the parking lot to occupy more land than
the actual store, even in urban areas.

------
egypturnash
I currently live in New Orleans, which is _very_ mixed-use if you're in the
city proper. It's really, really nice. I bike everywhere. Groceries,
bookstores, head shops, cafes, bars, hardware store (with a super nice
housewares department on the second floor), plumbers, auto shops, restaurants,
snoball stands, parks, schools[1], dentists, optometrists, lawyers, there's
pretty much everything I need in a 20min cycling radius. A lot of these
businesses are in buildings that are pretty much indistinguishable from the
houses next to them; there's signs and various adaptations for whatever
they're selling but so many of them started out as a house rather than
something built from the ground up to be A Store.

Leave the actual city and it starts turning into suburbs, where every distance
is designed for a car and all business is concentrated on one big road that's
got giant parking lots and big boxy buildings all along it. I go out there
when I absolutely must. There really aren't many reasons to do that.

1: sadly the city's schools have gone to hell in many ways since I was a kid,
but hey, I ain't got kids so I only get to worry about that in the abstract...

~~~
juniper_strong
If you bike everywhere why are you going to the auto shop?

~~~
egypturnash
I don’t, it’s just one of the many businesses lurking in my neighborhood. I
pass it regularly on my way elsewhere.

------
moltar
I hate North America’s zoning laws with a passion. They just create dead zones
and forces everyone to travel distances.

I love Europe and Southeast Asia so much for this very reason. You step out of
your house and everything is nearby.

I’m sure there are parts of both Europe and SEA that have the same problems,
but majority is mixed zoning.

------
throw737
I have liquer store under my windows, it is open 24 hours and has outside
benches. Basically loud nonstop pub with many junkies. I am going to move soon
to get better sleep

~~~
frank2
Is this in the US or some other country?

~~~
alexashka
Alcoholics hanging around liquor stores is a universal.

------
digitalsushi
Imagine how much better your life would be if one house on your suburban cul-
de-sac was a sleepy pub.

I can't tell you any of my neighbor's names. I've been here ten years.

But if I could walk for 6 minutes and get a beer, we'd all know each other's
names. We'd all have babysitter coverage, neighborhood watch, a reason to keep
the car in the garage, and slightly bigger bellies, overnight.

~~~
ed312
Having lived in a dense suburb outside of Providence RI with a local pub just
one large parking lot away, I can tell you: it sucks. Noise at all hours,
drunks everywhere, broken glass, constant smell of cigarette smoke. Replace
pub with "well maintained park with children's play area" and you might be on
to something.

~~~
jamil7
It might be a cultural thing but my home country Australia and the in the UK
the local pub in smaller towns is often a much more family oriented place.
Often there is outdoor seating and families go for dinner together, often
there is live local music. People also go just to drink but it’s all mixed
together, of course this varies depending on what part of a town or city
you’re in, some are more family oriented than others. I think that kind of pub
would fit well with OP’s description more than yours.

------
dhosek
This was once common in the inner ring suburbs of Chicago. There used to be a
small grocery store in the middle of a residential block near where I lived
and a bar in the middle of another residential block close to my elementary
school. There are houses whose former mixed use (shop in the front, house in
the back) are still obvious.

Here's one surviving neighborhood grocery in Berwyn, IL:

[https://goo.gl/maps/NCd45ghd6ajfPvLB6](https://goo.gl/maps/NCd45ghd6ajfPvLB6)

Unfortunately, I'm drawing a blank on the locations of some of the surviving
retail-to-residential conversions that I've spotted.

These are all largely a relic of an era in which housewives often didn't
drive, or if they did, didn't have access to a car while their husband was at
work so grocery shopping needed to be within easy walking distance of home.
Many of the minor commercial streets in the inner ring suburbs have vanished
as well, their customers having been consumed by larger supermarkets. It's
somewhat miraculous, really, that there are still a handful of these
neighborhood markets still in business.

~~~
tropdrop
The housewives aspect of it is a strange thing to focus on - this is a relic
of a time when _most people did not drive,_ i.e. this style of living was
natural to everyone, housewife or no, prior to Eisenhower-era financial
incentives to build highways everywhere[1], and _especially_ in areas of
"urban blight," which, of course, were also usually the densest parts of
neighborhoods/cities since the poor did not have cars. Some cities, e.g. New
York, succeeded in preventing the demolishing of some of their most historic
places in the name of "cleaning up." Most other places were not as successful,
though many tried[2]. Chicago's aptly named Eisenhower Expressway is a great
example of activist efforts often not being enough[3].

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#Struggle_for_Green...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#Struggle_for_Greenwich_Village)
2 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Urba...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Urban_Interstates_abandoned_because_of_local_opposition)

3 -
[https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/eisenhower/](https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/eisenhower/)

~~~
dhosek
Berwyn and Cicero weren't directly impacted by the Eisenhower (although Oak
Park was—something that the local populace still resents which is evidenced by
the fact that the exits for the Ike (much to my wife's confusion, I-290 goes
by multiple names) exist only on the borders of the village and are the only
left-side exits for the entirety of the Congress Expressway's (like I said...)
run). More impactful was perhaps the replacement of streetcar lines with buses
and the shortening of the Douglas Park "L" to end at 54th instead of its
former terminus at Oak Park Avenue. Stickney, just south of Berwyn and Cicero,
was still semi-rural into the 50s when my parents' house was built and,
although it has had bus service from West Towns Bus Company (now Pace), it was
never not a place where cars were essential (I suppose in its pre-
incorporation days and first decade, one could have gotten by with a horse and
wagon). This is not a Greenwich Village situation.

I mentioned housewives walking to the neighborhood store to do shopping
because this was an aspect of the local culture that persisted into the 70s
and early 80s. Most had their own little carts for hauling home their
groceries (similar to these [https://www.amazon.com/customerpicks/Explore-
grocery-carts-f...](https://www.amazon.com/customerpicks/Explore-grocery-
carts-for-seniors/1c98c46e4ee1a151031c) it's interesting to see that these are
still sold, although I've not seen one in use for 30 years or so).

~~~
tropdrop
I see these little carts around San Francisco all the time! Especially used by
a lot of people in Chinatown, and also by a lot of older people, but today I
even saw a young lady using one!

Thank you for your input about the streetcars, Berwyn and Cicero, and Oak
Park. I fell in love with Chicago during my time there and always enjoy
getting to know more of its history. It is a powerful city (and I hope to
maybe move back to it in a few years, pending my career alignment).

------
habosa
When Americans talk about how great European cities are, they are often
talking about exactly this. Mixed-use neighborhoods full of charming small
businesses and dense housing within walking distance to daily needs.

------
cletus
So I've lived in a number of cities and seen many variations on this.

In Perth, Western Australia, there are pockets of this but the extraordinarily
high cost of real estate (true across all of Australia since the early 2000s),
which existing property owners are keen to protect, slowly kills local
businesses. Particularly in popular cafe strips where all the businesses that
made the area popular get priced out and commercial property owners would
rather sit on empty property for years than notionally devalue that property
by taking less rent.

Anecdotally I've heard all the WFH with Covid-19 has been a boon to local
businesses.

London as a general rule was (it's been 10+ years since I've lived in London
at this point) good for this. It never seemed like no matter where I was
(within Zones 1-5 anyway), I was ever that far away from a Tesco and a high
street.

NYC is of course excellent for this, at least the more central areas. The more
outlying areas tend to resemble more typical Northeast suburbia with 2 car
households and the like.

Northeast commuter towns tends to be good for this around the actual train
stations although some stations weirdly have nothing around them at all (eg
Manhasset).

Most US cities tend to be terrible for this to the point of not even having
sidewalks and you might be 10 miles from the nearest shop, even in a large
city (eg Las Vegas seems to be like this).

It does seem like public transportation really helps here because it seems
like the northern suburbs of Dallas, for example (at least those on DART),
have recognizable downtowns such that they more closely resemble tri-state
commuter towns.

Large lots really seem to kill any of this. Like there are parts of the
Greater Atlanta area where a "normal" lot is 1 or even 2 acres. This is an
amount of space that is simply incomprehensible to any European. Even an
Australian.

And of course the US has Walmart, which has been a pretty effective way of
killing all the small businesses in local neighbourhoods.

------
tinyhouse
In the Boston area many of the nearby towns are what I call "urban suburbs".
Very family friendly, many single- or two-family homes, but also very walkable
and many shops throughout the town. I'm talking about towns such as Brookline,
Cambridge and Arlington. They are really nice towns to live in and in very
high demand.

~~~
murrayhenson
> Cambridge

"Our fair city!" -Tom Magliozzi

------
acd
This kind of city planning design was popular in Sweden in the 1950/60s with
close community mini centras torg, happy that its re surging. There would
usually for example be a grocery store, a hair dresser and a flower shop,
usually also a local restaurant.

With a good local community one does not need to use a car very often. There
is also spontaneous social interactions with locals, this is something we do
not get when buying online. We may also build repair centre for our things.
This would be like a bike shop but for devices.

~~~
hnarn
I'm Swedish and while I'd love to take credit for this type of structure,
surely this is _much_ older and more widespread? If you travel to France you
notice immediately that there's a bakery, a butcher etc. in every town, so
some part of it is down to culture and political decisions (like Sweden in the
50's), but if we move back in time this was the absolute default for a very
simple reason: any other setup than the "close community shops" was untenable
until the introduction of the automobile.

So this model that we now consider exotic has actually been the standard for
99% of human history, but since the early 1900s we have been caught in a
feedback loop of increased mobility -> lower real estate prices outside of the
city -> cheaper goods which to this day is killing city centers commercially
all across Sweden.

I absolutely welcome this change, but I think it's important to point out that
the reason it now seems so attractive is because this mobility that fueled the
entire change has now essentially disappeared. I can only hope that with
increased environmental consciousness, it becomes even more outdated, because
I really dislike it.

Here's to hoping we get a future composed of small local stores, and "big-box"
corporations with excellent shipping options instead of expecting you to come
to them. It can't happen soon enough.

------
jungletime
I liked whistler village when I visited. All the cars are parked on the
outside. Inside there is only walking, restaurants and shopping. Creates a
really nice atmosphere.

Outdoor malls seem to be the closet thing to that. And are pretty great spaces
to be in. Maybe will be more prevalent because of covid now. But they even
work in cold places, there is one in Michigan that I know off.

I used to live across from a 3 story apartment building, maybe 20 apartments.
Pretty run down place, with drug dealers, and just low income people.

Then the apartment building owner decided to do some landscaping. Planted a
few trees, and put out some adirondack chairs on the front lawn. Which
attracted a guy wanting to play his guitar outside. Which then attracted an
audience. Which then turned into a nightly gathering of people on the front
lawn playing music from the apartment building. People with drug and alcohol
abuse problems still live in that building. But now that place has real sense
of community. And actual happy moments are shared outside nightly. Where as
before everyone would rush through the front door to their apartment, now they
stop and say hi to each other.

~~~
cwkoss
Japan has "shopping arcades" which I really like. It is like a wide
pedestrian-only alley with the retail density of a mall, but outdoors and the
path is covered. Then side streets are local access only and often have small
restaurants or izakayas

------
rwhitman
Of course the daunting obstacle is changing the mindset of suburban planners
and nimbys. The zoning ordinances that have dominated planning in the USA
since the 50's ban this in large swaths of America..

New Urbanism made progress creating denser planning in the last 30 years, but
focused too much on high density mixed use. Adding small shops to residential
streets is definitely the one area that they've really failed on in my
opinion. It's the reason older towns and cities still trounce the 'burbs on
walkability and will for a long time.

But while we're at it we should also think about other human-scale
improvements, like narrow streets. Worth a read for anyone interested in
retrofitting the suburbs:
[https://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20130131.php#.Xxptm...](https://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20130131.php#.XxptmPipGL4)

------
frequentnapper
I live in Tokyo, and pretty much every neighborhood has some cafe/izakaya
being run from the back of a home by a grandpa or grandma. Usually these
places are extremely tiny and can seat max 4 people. I've seen some of them
open all night. Not sure if they have to deal with some sort of licensing
especially for liquor.

------
lykahb
Vibrant downtowns of many American cities were built before the zoning laws.
Their desirability is the most obvious proof that mixed zoning has benefits.

------
toofy
For a few years I’ve wondered how possible it would be for large neighborhood
associations to own a neighborhood grocery store.

I haven’t bothered yet to run the numbers, but I would expect if the
association was large enough it wouldn’t add much cost.

Residents could get a substantial discount while non-residents could pay
normal prices. Residents could put in subscription style orders for things
they would always regularly need. It would make it easier to order specialty
things that normal groceries stores wouldn’t carry, etc...

~~~
bri3d
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_cooperative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_cooperative)
?

The problem here is that eventually rent-seeking becomes appealing, someone
realizes there's skim/margin/"arbitrage" to be made, and so the capitalism
progresses.

~~~
toofy
Yeah, food coops but strictly limited to a residents of neighborhood would be
close to what I had in mind.

I wonder if you could put in the association bylaws that it must remain free
of profits/margins/“arbitrage” to mitigate against something like this.

I haven’t looked into it closely though since I ultimately have a strong
distaste for home owners associations anyway.

------
lazyjones
Tiny businesses aren't disappearing because of zoning, it's the economy of
scale and heavy taxation/regulation that made them (or the lower-margin ones)
unviable in places where they used to be common (like big European cities).

One of the more memorable stories about a tiny waxing studio giving up here in
Vienna was them being required to have employees working in rooms with windows
only and the only big enough window was the storefront one.

------
mberning
I would love to own a true neighborhood pub. A literal “public house”. Nothing
fancy but a nice watering hole for the locals.

------
Cthulhu_
It's not viable unless they get an x amount of foot traffic, which is why
these shops tend to be in city / commercial centers instead.

That said, back in my hometown we used to have multiple businesses on wheels
visiting once a week; ice cream truck, fish, a grocery shop, a mail-order
frozen-products guy, etc.

I've seen the same happen in a commercial district, mostly big office
buildings with underground parking, but there was an ice cream and a coffee
trike doing the rounds. The coffee one would set up shop at the local train
station in the morning, then move to an urban park thing later in the day. The
ice cream truck would move around, stand in front of the building and ring the
bell.

------
seiferteric
Yes! When I lived in an old house in the outskirts of Chico, there was a
random little coffee shop right down the street. Seemed totally out of place
but I loved it. I would really like small cafes and shops inside the Suberbs!

------
duxup
I like this idea mostly, except maybe the restaurant with outdoor seating.

Not sure I would want that to pop up next door / be loud late into the
evening....

At least I wouldn't expect it to just pop up.

~~~
Cogito
In my experience, the licensing laws typically deal with this. If a restaurant
or bar, they can't serve alcohol or have live music after 9pm, or similar
rules.

Works pretty well, and I'd much rather have the small restaurant or bar next
door than not!

------
HeadsUpHigh
The USA is the only place I know that doesn't have businesses in residential
neighborhoods. I really don't understand why it is that way. We have mini-
markets with a small stock of most commonly bought items, fridges with water
iced tea etc, cigarettes newspapers on almost every corner. And it doesn't
need to stop there. Why not laundry shops? Small cafes, etc.

99.99% of any potential issues can be taken care of with simple laws such as
noise limits etc.

------
_0o6v
This sounds great in a utopia where everybody is quiet and considerate,
delivery drivers don't throw boxes and crates around, people don't get drunk
and smash bottles in the street or have arguments.

Having lived next to and above commercial properties I can say it doesn't
improve quality of life, it drastically impacts mental health, stress, and
sleep. There's a reason that we have commercial districts and residential
districts.

------
ApolloFortyNine
I live somewhere that has tiny businesses like this. I still end up driving to
my local discount grocery store because, despite having a very well paying for
the area, I just can't bring myself to spend anywhere form 30% more to even
double for 'the good stuff' when I can get generics for so much less.

So sorry, guess I'm part of the problem, but I'd rather spend money on stuff I
actually want.

------
goda90
When I lived in Chile, I really enjoyed the little tiendas everywhere,
particularly the ones that were bakeries. I have a hard time imagining how
well something similar would work in my suburban neighborhood where everyone
has cars. Maybe a destination like a cafe, but it just makes more sense for
people around here to get a bunch of shopping done at the grocery store 5
minutes away in their car.

------
bigbizisverywyz
Here in Zurich this is really well done - I just wished we did it more back
home in the UK too.

Small businesses, e.g. coffee shops, hairdressers and florists occupy the
bottom floors, and accountants and dentists the upper floors.

It keeps a nice mix of building use and means some services are nicely
scattered throughout the city.

------
cpfohl
I spent about 6 years in Poland when I was a kid. They had little kiosks
(15'x15' ish?) all over, it's where you bought your daily stuff you didn't
want to buy in bulk: bus tickets, gum, newspapers, bread, vegetables. This
feels like a no brainer to me.

------
Causality1
I suppose this would work very well for people with a particular outlook. I'm
not one of them. My neighborhood is a refuge from commerce; I don't want
stores within earshot of my front door. I don't want people I don't know
walking past my yard at night.

------
spicyramen
Coming from Latin America,this was the best way for someone to get their
business started and get some extra cash. From selling candies, to food and
groceries. All that came to an end when Walmart and other chain companies such
as 711 or Oxxo appeared..

------
scarface74
Not totally on topic...

I have to admit the one thing I miss about moving out to the burbs from the
relatively upscale apartments we lived in for awhile was that we had
restaurant and major grocery stores within walking distance

------
louwrentius
For whoever cares about this topic:

Strong Towns may be of interest. They address this topic, and put everything
in a bigger picture.

[https://www.strongtowns.org](https://www.strongtowns.org)

------
mdavis6890
The fundamental problem is that we (in the US) live in a permission-based
system, not a freedom-based one. In this example, you have to ask for
permissions related to running a business and using land.

The system that you have to ask permission from has a particular vision about
how things ought to be done, and does not handle change or non-conformity well
- even seeing them as a threat.

One hallmark for identifying such a system is that when there is not a law
about something, it is referred to in terms like "legal grey area" or "outside
the law."

We need to change the system to allow for freedom and individual decision
making, without asking permission from the system. Freedom is what is left
outside the boundaries of the law.

------
ourmandave
My parents ran a small business out of their home and the UPS truck came by
for pick-ups every day.

They had a yes/no sign in the window to signal if he had to stop or not.

This was before the internet and easy scheduling.

------
j45
This would be great to see, even if they were pop up spaces that could cycle
through providing what a neighbourhood might need at any given time.

------
ilaksh
[http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/](http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/)

------
Jugurtha
I live in the suburbs. In a radius of _200m_ from where I live, 2 minutes on
foot, here are some of the businesses there are:

\- Car accessory workshop for aftermarket accessories

\- Car mechanic

\- Car tire shop (they check, patch, and change your tires)

\- Bycicle and bike repair shop

\- Car electricians (3)

\- Car wash (3)

\- Carpenter

\- House appliance shop

\- Travel agencies

\- Accountant

\- RV home maker

\- Shop to print motifs on shirts/clothes

\- Opticians

\- Sauna (3) one with a gym, a swimming pool, etc.

\- Showers

\- Bathroom

\- Kitchenware shop

\- Barbers (2)

\- Bakeries (4)

\- Pharmacists (2)

\- Dentist (2)

\- Pediatrician

\- Generalist MD

\- Gynaecologist

\- Endocrinologist

\- Medical analyses lab

\- Insurance company

\- Printing shop

\- Children's clothes shops

\- Adults' clothes shops

\- Internet café

\- Coffee shops

\- Grocery shops

\- Tailor

\- Pastery shop

\- Kiosques

\- Jeweler

\- Electronics shop

\- A blacksmith

\- A small theme park for kids

\- Food joints (pizzerias, burgers, grills, others)

\- Protective equipment shop

\- Office supplies/Stationery/Chairs/Tables, etc.

\- Electric motors repair shop

\- Minimarkets (3)

\- Gyms

Others:

\- Primary school

\- Middle school

\- Police station

\- A football stadium converted to a gymnasium

Bigger:

\- Cheese factory

\- Yogurt factory

\- Other industrial stuff

\- Car dealerships

Farther (300m): fresh produce market, pharmacy, and a bunch of other shops.

Farther (10 minutes):

\- A green space of about 350 acres

The catch: a lot of them live there. By there I mean they own the house. The
shops are on the street level, and they live in the upper levels. Some others
live nearby, as in are either the owner's neighbor from a few houses away or 5
minutes down the road. But you can pretty much do a lot without moving.

~~~
laxk
Where do you live?

~~~
Jugurtha
In Algiers, Algeria.

------
jojobas
Downtowns may be abandoned, but the shopping malls aren't (where I live).

Local businesses still can't compete with big box stores.

------
Animats
It's like having a convenience store in the lobby of an apartment building.
Seems like a great idea, but it takes a huge apartment building, or a city
block of modest ones, to support a convenience store. Vending machines, maybe.

We see this with all those "mixed use" buildings going up in Silicon Valley,
with retail spaces on the ground floor. It's really hard to fill those retail
spaces.

~~~
zip1234
The problem is that all of those places are planned. I get major 'Soviet
Central Planning' vibes from the USA when it comes to zoning and planning out
cities. Of course the people making the decisions on planning have no idea
what will work. They only know what will work in the most rudimentary, scaled
up, sense. Small shops need to be allowed everywhere, rules about minimum
parking, lot sizes, use, etc need to be relaxed to allow those things to even
be possible.

~~~
madamelic
Suburbs are literally rooted in racism.

That sounds hyperbolic, but the first suburb in post-war US was a planned
whites-only community to escape the city. (Levittown)

\---

With that said, yes, the US purposefully planned blocks of cities to be
dedicated to one purpose. This promotes car culture which, surprise surprise,
car and oil companies were big into lobbying to shut down mixed use and public
transit, and continue to be.

Mixed use areas are typically either big cities, have pre-war origins where it
has basically always been mixed use or typically both.

------
senojretep356
Good idea, I like mixed zoning and supporting small local businesses rather
than behemoths like Walmart.

------
heidegger
good idea but we can do ever better than that by build co-ops in residential
neighborhoods

what we need are goods and services where people are, but that doesn't
necessarily mean provided by businesses when they could be provided to and by
the people who are already there

------
naveen99
Isn’t work from home basically putting business back into neighborhoods?

------
pmlnr
:: insert ancient aliens meme with 'americans' overlay ::

------
holler
In Seattle this is prevalent, part of the charm.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Only in parts of it. There's a lot of the city that is just not suited to a
walking lifestyle.

~~~
siosonel
My wife and I got electric bikes about 8 weeks ago and they have been great
for running errands in lieu of single-occupancy car trips. We live near the
Interurban Trail/Aurora and the e-bikes enable much easier access to a variety
of stores, restaurants, and parks, which are not easily walkable. We now
appreciate the nearby bike lanes and quiet streets for making longer trips to
bigger parks or neighboring downtowns like Edmonds. We recently had wanted to
return to Capitol Hill to enjoy a more walkable neighborhood, but so far
bikeabilty has been an excellent substitute. Plus, in four years there will be
a light rail station near us to offer yet another alternative to car trips. We
feel lucky to have these options in our "suburban" location.

------
dutch3000
love it. economic localization.

------
blue52
This would be an amazing solution to implement and would benefit so many who
were hurt during this over reach over government into business and private
lives.

------
kbos87
Better yet, outlaw a business like amazon and create an instant market for
tens of thousands of small local businesses.

------
itisit
Seems like an invitation for loitering among other nuisances. A great idea for
some places, but I feel there are many who prefer their neighborhoods truly
remain residential.

