Should Cities Limit Chain Stores To Help Promote Small Business
Retail revolution: should cities ban chain stores?
20 April 2017 By Colin Horgan Read More: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...stores-toronto Quote:
Chain stores in New York, where some activists are proposing ‘formula retail’ be limited to preserve the character of different neighbourhoods. Photograph: Getty http://i.imgur.com/bmXuJdT.jpg?1 ‘Dominated by multistorey facades of bright corporate advertising’ … Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada. Photograph: Alamy http://i.imgur.com/XYdeWD2.jpg?1 Graffiti in Stokes Croft, Bristol, where a riot broke out in 2011 after police engaged with protesters against the opening of the city’s 32nd Tesco branch. Photograph: Sam Frost http://i.imgur.com/GduNoMq.jpg?1 Vesuvio cafe in San Francisco, where some neighbourhoods strictly limit chain stores. Photograph: Alamy http://i.imgur.com/C9rMQlX.jpg?1 |
Well, since I live in one of the cities mentioned that does limit formula retail, I can say it has good points and bad points. It does what it is supposed to do which is allow the flourishing of mom/pop (more often 2 twenty-somethings) boutique retail but it also puts a lot of stress on Amazon delivery people. Since we have no Way-Mart and or other "big box" stores (2 exceptions: a single CostCo and a single Lowes), I buy an awful lot of staples and non-perishable items from Amazon and Walmart.com at sometimes half the local prices.
I actually live near Hayes Valley which was mentioned in the article but I don't shop there. I go there fairly often to eat--lots of restaurants that I suspect might be there anyway--but since I am not a shoe fetishist, there's not a lot in the stores there I want to buy (or want to pay the prices they ask). My bottom line is that I am OK with this policy on individual streets in certain high end neighborhoods only, but the city as a whole should allow the sort of discount shopping venues most Americans take for granted and that provide the less affluent with all sorts of inexpensive goods. The lack of such places in San Francisco is one more reason nobody but the rich can afford to live here. Hayes St. http://www.sanfranciscodays.com/phot...ouse-hayes.jpg https://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...g&action=click PS: San Francisco does have its district of high end retail like Chicago's Miracle Mile, New York's 5th and Madison Aves and, I presume, Yonge St. It's around and near Union Square--here you find 5 or 6 major department stores, Cartier, Tiffany, Van Cleef, Apple, Nike, and Prada and numerous other designer shops. No big box style discount though. Target did recently open a "City Target" which has limited offerings. |
Interesting question. There's obviously some very difficult issues when it comes to neighborhood renewal and pricing local business out of the market. In this case though with escalating rents the only stores that could survive are speciality luxury stores with huge mark up and profit on a few products. This case shows how neighborhood livability suffers. While we might think the old building is an eyesoar it is really an important part of the makeup in a healthy urban environment.
I like to think of it like the backyard. Sure, you don't like the ugly piece of rotting fence in the backyard, but that is hosting bugs that make your soil healthier for your flowers and habitats for small birds that eat annoying mosquitos. All in all, a little bit of eyesore is potentially making your backyard more liveable. There is certainly something I like about non-chain stores. It means that when I visit a city I get a feel for that city instead of the same stuff I could see anywhere. For me familiarity generally breeds contempt. While I sometimes just want something familiar, when all the options are familiar I am bored. The balance is what is important. |
Formula retail doesn't have to have much to do with old buildings. Outfits like Walgreen's and CVS are adept at putting locations in historic buildings (after renovation) and so are fast food outfits. Even Home Depot has some impressive retrofits in downtown areas. So allowing formula retail doesn't mean you bulldoze the site and put up a cheap modern structure necessarily--that can be controlled by other methods.
As for rents, the general argument is the formula folks can afford higher rents than one-of-a-kinds, even higher end one-of-a-kinds. It's the fact that they can afford such rents and their willingness to pay them drives up overall rents to levels one-of-a-kinds can't afford that is the justification for a legal ban. |
Perhaps the streetfronts of the touristy and historical streets can maintain the unique shops, and have space for chain stores on other streets.
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Store size and chain vs. non-chain are separate topics, though they can influence each other.
Seattle has examples where favoritism works. Laws about putting calories on menus, setting work schedules weeks in advance, and minimum wages are all different depending on the employee count or the number of locations. We've never been as chain-dominated as some cities, but these have helped solidify this fact. Also I'm a couple blocks from the Pike Place Market, which is run by a public PDA...the only chains are the ones that started there including Starbucks and Sur La Table. Even having two locations is rare...I'm thinking Beecher's. |
no, that would be stupid. riding on the coat tails of gentrifcation and white guilt, now we apparently are entering a era of retail guilt as well. feeling bad about being too successful. leave it to san francisco to try such a thing. cities should not engage in social engineering to further their local agendas. but that's the problem with far left city government, they think they know what is best for their citizens. don't get me started on soda tax.....cbd's are for business and tourists, many of whom are foreign and probably are attracted to big box america retail. neighborhoods are for locals and mom and pops flourish better in those environments anyway. city commerce should grow organically in response to the free market...rent too high? open up elsewhere. that's the way its always been. already expensive cities trying to mitigate high expenses are a day late, and many hundreds of nimby dollars short....
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No. Let consumers decide what and where they want to shop.
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No, just build enough retail space so lower margin businesses can afford rent.
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Isn't brick-and-mortar retail disappearing anyway?
I know, just playing devil's advocate. I got into a brief conversation with someone regarding this; those spur-of-the-moment, suddenly needed purchases can't be handled by ordering something online: "I need a new tie for my cousin's wedding in 3 hours! F*UCK!" So of course you're gonna run into a store to buy a necktie, you're not gonna order it online. |
The City of Toronto has no power to ban chain stores. Do other cities have that power and how is it accomplished?
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Just like how there's heritage buildings perhaps a process can be set up to decide whether a neighbourhood should be preserved, or a particular street.
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Does it still count if a local business becomes a chain? Asheville is home to a few restaurants that, like kudzu, are beginning to creep across the South, sinking deep roots into cities and towns everywhere in the area. Tupelo Honey, an upscale Southern restaurant on College Street downtown, has opened fourteen other branches. Likewise, Chai Pani, an Indian place on Battery Park Avenue, has colonized Atlanta. Papa's and Beer, the (not "a," the) Mexican place is on pace to take over the Carolinas and Tennessee from their flagship palace of flavor in Hendersonville.
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Formula retail is defined as a store having: Quote:
Doesn't matter where the first store was. Once they hit 11 they are subject to the ordinance. The existing locations can stay but new ones have to comply which can mean they are prohibited. |
Note that the most unfortunate and perverse aspect of this policy can be blight. In most cities there are well-known "difficult" (sometimes called "unlucky") retail locations where multiple stores have failed. These locations become hard to fill. San Francisco has some and in some cases national chains, realizing more competitive spots might be hard for them to occupy, have chosen these unwanted spaces. In more than one case, they have still been turned down and a retail space that may have been vacant for years remains vacant.
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Portland had a notorious case recently where a trader joe's wanted to move into north porltand. Neighborhood activists tried to cock block it on the grounds that it was only catering to high income households and that poor, long time locals were being left out (ie trader joes contributes to gentrification because of its average clientele). But have you seen tj prices?? The neighborhood group wanted the city to try and promote a strip mall that would have local business go in, instead. well its still empty, and the proposed anchor tenant (natural grocers??) hasn't started building yet. the city also sold the property for about 2million dollars below market value.....that's weird....
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Maybe it should be combined with historical preservation, to ensure that developers do not simply buy out three storefronts with 16-foot frontages, demolish them, and make a new more chain-friendly retail space. But that's about it. |
I'd like to see more multi-story retail here like they have in Japan which gives lower margin businesses more affordable spaces to operate in highly desirable commercial corridors.
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