
The Urban Planning Behind America’s Weirdest McDonald’s - firstbase
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-urban-planning-behind-americas-weirdest-mcdonalds/
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wcunning
There are so many examples of this sort of thing. I am frustrated by the ease
with which buildings are declared historical sites and how often that
designation happens _after_ somebody buys a piece of property to develop it. I
think it would be far fairer to the purchaser (and the seller, who makes out
like a bandit unfairly) to mandate a 90 day stay when a large parcel is sold
to allow for filing of historical paperwork. If that doesn't get filed or if
it doesn't get granted after filing, then the property transfers at the agreed
upon price. If it does get historical status, then it reverts to a much lower
price or the sale is canceled.

You may be thinking "well that damn richie-rich developer can just get
screwed, he wanted to destroy important history in my town for his evil
profit." I am thinking about the guy who just wanted to live in a nice house
walking distance from downtown, so he bought just outside a historical
district to avoid all the paperwork, intending to replace a dilapidated house
constructed poorly in 1920, only to find that the historical preservation
committee extended the boundaries right after his sale went through. Or, in
the alternative, the recent news out of Denver where they attempted and
ultimately failed to designate a chain diner as "historic" when the owner
wanted to sell the place and retire. Using regulatory power to stop the guy
from getting his expected retirement payout when he's done being a restaurant
manager is unreasonably heavy handed, in my opinion.

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lostlogin
> There are so many examples of this sort of thing. I am frustrated by the
> ease with which buildings are declared historical sites and how often that
> designation happens after somebody

The flip side of this is that developers don’t have a good record. Cheap,
badly done developments and a history of buying, then revealing their true
plans. “Oh, it turned out to be structurally unstable, so we have to
demolish”.

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thatfrenchguy
Most new development in the US look terrible indeed. I’d rather get
overprotection than those buildings everywhere in my city.

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rizwank
And what about the subsequent pressure on new ever growing need for housing?

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rdiddly
What about it? If there's ever a mass exodus to Freeport ME, the people trying
to service that need will follow the rules while serving the need. Or they'll
get out of that market and someone else will do it. In the "worst" case the
local property owners get higher prices which is a win, and the aesthetic
rules maintain the (presumed) attractiveness of the town, which is a win.
Shrug emoji? The locals hold all the cards, and I'm not even sure that's a bad
thing.

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esoterica
> the local property owners get higher prices which is a win

Preventing people from being able to afford a place to live so entrenched
interests can accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment
appreciation is not a “win”.

Even if you think that the interests of long term “locals” should be
privileged (which I disagree with, all men are created equal yada yada),
rising property prices don’t benefit all locals, just “local property owners”,
as you’ve observed. Local renters and even the kids of local homeowners who
eventually want to enter the property market themselves are hurt by
constrained supply.

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rdiddly
In other words it's a win for the winners, just like capitalism as usual. I
can't fix capitalism. The people making these laws are the same ones
benefiting, was my point. They win because they hold all the cards. We can
talk all day about whether they _should_ win. On the "they shouldn't" side,
you can make a "free enterprise" argument like this article seems to, or an
"equity" argument like you seem to be doing. They're both sound arguments, and
meanwhile contrariwise I also buy the argument that being in a place should
afford you some amount of self-determination. There's no clear right answer
and no moral high ground, just different groups of people fighting over who
gets the resources... again sort of "as usual."

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CountSessine
What on earth does gaming the housing market through government regulations
have to do with “free enterprise”? Using regulations to distort markets is the
very opposite of free enterprise.

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rdiddly
You answered your own question; they're related by opposition. As I said.

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CountSessine
Your answer suggested that you consider restrictive land zoning regulations to
be consistent with free enterprise and efficient pricing, which of course it
is not.

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egypturnash
Personally I find that going into a standard cookie-cutter instance of a
franchise is depressing; they're usually built with pleasing aesthetics low on
the list of priorities, far below "cheap", "easy to hose down", and "does not
encourage customers lingering". Going into one that's been shaped by a place
with an aesthetic agenda results in something that's got a few surprises, and
has design flourishes that exist solely to please the eye.

But what do I know, I grew up in the second city in the US to ever establish a
Historic Preservation District and had my tastes shaped by lots of
architecture from a time when "maximizing profit" wasn't the only thing ever
considered in building.

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wwarner
Honest question: why do you think that the older buildings didn't "maximize
profit" for their creators?

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egypturnash
Here, have a look at a representative sample of images:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=new+orleans+french+quarter&bext=ms...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=new+orleans+french+quarter&bext=msl&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=images)

Just look at any of those wrought iron railings. From a purely functional
viewpoint they could do their job of being a railing to stop you from falling
off the balcony with a series of plain vertical bars. But they are these
elaborate concoctions of decoration and detail that someone had to cast, bend,
and shape. You'll find similar aesthetic choices made throughout the city; a
lot of houses have wrought iron bars over their windows to deter breakins, and
very few of them are the simplest, cheapest design possible, for instance.

I am quite sure these buildings have made a profit; hell, the ones in the
French Quarter are a big part of the modern tourist economy that draws people
and money from all over. But there are a lot of details all over that serve
purely to make the buildings pleasing to live and work in, which tend to be
the first thing to go in modern architecture driven entirely by maximizing
profits (and also still in love with the inhuman brutalist visions of people
like Le Corbusier, when it comes to building housing).

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kazen44
One of the supposed reasons for this is the relation between labour and
product prices.

Before WW2, labour was far cheaper then materials, especially in Europe.

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notahacker
Labour being cheap made elaborately designed wrought iron balconies _possible_
for relatively modest housing. It didn't make them _necessary_ (and relatively
speaking, the iron itself was a lot more expensive then)

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captainbland
> Locals seem to be content with all four developments

If the locals like it, and they're the ones who are going to be using it and
looking at it all the time, then frankly who cares what the "reception online"
is?

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asveikau
Irony alert: I suspect if you asked those behind a thing titled "American
Conservative" if they liked federalism, they would say yes. But the gist of
this article seems to be that they don't like local control of regulation.

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tptacek
This is all very off-topic, but if it clarifies: libertarian-conservatives
(the kind this publication caters to) prefer local control over centralized
control, and _also_ prefer less regulation to more regulation. So a
libertarian-conservative would rather Arizona control beautician licensing
standards than the federal government, but would also prefer the abolition of
beautician licensing altogether. It's a coherent world view.

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asveikau
I don't see it as very coherent, because if you favor local control you should
favor a local community reflecting its own priorities, deciding to regulate
more or less. Obviously there are abundant places that decide to regulate
less. Throw in a zealous belief in free market principles (which these types
tend to claim) and then I would say: a diverse set of regulatory environments
should help markets find the best.

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tptacek
I don’t agree with libertarian conservatives, I’m just relating the
perspective.

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inimino
> One can’t help but wonder, was it worth all the fuss to save a mansion that
> sells McDoubles and McFlurrys—a McMansion, if you will? Are teal Golden
> Arches really strengthening the heritage of the Southwest? Are faux Greek
> Revival columns at the drive-thru window really changing perceptions about
> the quality of a humdrum suburb? At the same time that we likely
> overestimate the placemaking powers of preserving and designing by
> committee, perhaps there’s underappreciated wisdom in just letting a
> McDonald’s be a McDonald’s.

Isn't there also an underappreciated wisdom in just not letting there be a
McDonald's in your community?

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Erwin
The one in Bergen, Norway is in a historical building and has avoided the
excessive branding:
[https://www.google.dk/maps/place/McDonald's+Bryggesporen/@60...](https://www.google.dk/maps/place/McDonald's+Bryggesporen/@60.3954113,5.3266711,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipN6qMLQlA3vt91viocojlxu1eorkTjkoHpWsuTt!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipN6qMLQlA3vt91viocojlxu1eorkTjkoHpWsuTt%3Dw203-h225-k-no!7i2370!8i2632!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x463cfea7c596593f:0xa9d64b8353210c9d!2sMcDonald's+Bryggesporen!8m2!3d60.3954113!4d5.3266711!3m4!1s0x463cfea7c596593f:0xa9d64b8353210c9d!8m2!3d60.3954113!4d5.3266711)

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op00to
heh! looks like a cheap knockoff!

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Ididntdothis
I like it when buildings look different. I find it super depressing when you
drive across the US countryside and everywhere looks totally the same. I think
it’s much nicer to have some standards where business have to fit the place
instead of the usual soulless cookie cutter style.

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tptacek
I'm skeptical of architectural preservationism but I don't think the "Most
Beautiful McDonalds In America" really helped his case, because I can't
imagine anyone preferring a standard McDonalds to the retrofit Georgian
Mansion he's singled out.

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jld
Here's one in Leavenworth, WA, a town where they have a Bavarian themed design
requirements.

[https://goo.gl/maps/LaCgUjQLbMX3nGuv5](https://goo.gl/maps/LaCgUjQLbMX3nGuv5)

The McDonalds is a bit subdued, the Starbucks is perhaps a better example.

[https://goo.gl/maps/nFemv8G1n7toUa4h6](https://goo.gl/maps/nFemv8G1n7toUa4h6)

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stannol
Here's one from Regensburg (Bavaria), AFAIK a compromise between the city
(they wanted no modern branding at all) and McDonalds.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/McDonald...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/McDonalds_in_Regensburg.jpg)

"At the golden M"

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hkmurakami
The McDonalds (and other chain retail stores) have subdued colors and design
in central Kyoto. They are most frequently brown/black based.

[https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20130903-a075/](https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20130903-a075/)

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csande17
The McDonald's stores in the States seem to be heading in that direction as
well. Here's a random example from Google Images:

[https://westernnews.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photo...](https://westernnews.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2018/01/09/Iphone_McDonalds_r320x250.jpg?1bd91f71766099ac905655bfdbc9e48654aa6810)

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pbreit
These seems like a triumph of hyper local design regs.

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mark_l_watson
Ha! I live a half mile from the Sedona McDonald’s in the article’s first
picture. My grandchildren love junk food, so I have been in there more than a
few times when they visit. I have lived in Sedona for about twenty years and I
don’t know any locals who dislike the architecture.

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skybrian
It makes a bit more sense when you realize that many buildings outlast the
businesses in them. These buildings are unlikely to be McDonalds restaurants
forever.

But for stuff that's easily changeable (like color and signs), it seems
excessive.

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kevin_thibedeau
The zoning board missed the opportunity to force turquoise paint on the drive-
thru. Yellow just completely ruins the local character.

