November 29, 2006
“Why not sell the goods and services people want?”
That's the last line of an essay in the latest Atlantic entitled "In Praise of Chain Stores". The question is directed at urbanists who want to revitalize downtown areas but refuse to allow stores that actually carry and successfully market things that people actually want to buy. That would seem to be a pretty good place to start.
Money quotes:
"[T]he same local activists who oppose chains 'want specialty retail that sells exactly what the chains sell—the same price, the same fit, the same qualities, the same sizes, the same brands, even.' You can show people pictures of a Pottery Barn with nothing but the name changed, he says, and they’ll love the store. So downtown stores stay empty, or sell low-value tourist items like candles and kites, while the chains open on the edge of town. In the name of urbanism, officials and activists in cities like Ann Arbor and Fort Collins, Colorado, are driving business to the suburbs."
"Chains do more than bargain down prices from suppliers or divide fixed costs across a lot of units. They rapidly spread economic discovery—the scarce and costly knowledge of what retail concepts and operational innovations actually work. That knowledge can be gained only through the expensive and time-consuming process of trial and error. Expecting each town to independently invent every new business is a prescription for real monotony, at least for the locals. Chains make a large range of choices available in more places. They increase local variety, even as they reduce the differences from place to place. People who mostly stay put get to have experiences once available only to frequent travelers, and this loss of exclusivity is one reason why frequent travelers are the ones who complain. When Borders was a unique Ann Arbor institution, people in places like Chandler—or, for that matter, Philadelphia and Los Angeles—didn’t have much in the way of bookstores. Back in 1986, when California Pizza Kitchen was an innovative local restaurant about to open its second location, food writers at the L.A. Daily News declared it 'the kind of place every neighborhood should have.' So what’s wrong if the country has 158 neighborhood CPKs instead of one or two?"
You want to revitalize your downtown area? Fine. Stick something there that large numbers of people will actually frequent. The tiny little boutiques may be aesthetically pleasing, but when's the last time you ever bought something there? Honestly now. So those stores close and people complain about the death of downtown. Stick a Gap down there and see what happens.
Thanks for the post.
Moreover, "Mom and Pop" shops that do provide genuinely unique (or local or quality or high-end) products are thriving in downtowns as well. They can co-exist with Wal-Mart and Target and Best Buy just fine.
It isn't a matter of "fancy local european-style bakery VS. big grocery store." Rather, the affordability of my every-day groceries (made possible by the big grocery store) allows me to spend more on the niche markets I'm interested in (for me, that's high-end coffee, beer, and meat).
You should see the excitement of the folks in Nampa, ID over the CostCo and Target and Wal-Mart that have moved into town. Those stores make products and services available and affordable to an extent simply not possible before.
At the same time, high-end import and specialty shops are finding a niche in the growing downtown areas.
I fail to see how this combination could possibly be a bad thing, even aesthetically.
Posted by: nick at November 29, 2006 3:42 PMDefinitely agree that chain stores need to be allowed downtown.
Hard part is that the urban planners who aren't apposed to chain stores being downtown often have to put up with archaic zoning laws which also require said chain restaurant to level half a city block to provide parking, which a healthy downtown that does not make. Usually there's a ton of work that goes into demolishing the old zoning laws before a healthy revitalization occurs.
And Nick is right, those mom n' pop stores do just fine (providing they offer a product for which there is at least some demand). That's kind of a no-brainer.
And I buy stuff there all the time. You should see this new place on Frazier called Blue Skies. Everyone is going nuts about it. Mom n' Pop shop. Done right. We Coptix guys can't keep our wives away. And me personally, I'm more of a food guy, and I love the Ruby Rock Grotto, Mocha Joe's for B-fast, and Hoppy's-Porkers-Lupiz for lunch.
All of 'em are "mom and pop" shops.
Posted by: Josiah at November 29, 2006 11:16 PMJosiah makes a key point in his second paragraph. Zoning laws, and other such forms of "planning," are the main enemy of a healthy neighborhood. And large parking lots are deadly to the city - they cut up the city block too much, disturbing both its visual and social cohesiveness.
We need a mix of stores in our communities, but the problem is most chain stores are of the "big-box" type which simply can't fit into an urban grid. If there was such a thing as a "slimmed-down," streamlined version of a chain store, I'd be all for it.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at November 30, 2006 10:29 PMOk, I re-read your post - sounds like Postrel (whose work I've liked in the past) is making an argument that works better when you're talking about small or mid-size chain stores and restaurants rather than the huge "big-box" ones like Wal-Mart which are most controversial. Considered in those terms, I think her argument is sound.
There was a Borders in downtown Oxford, as well as Blackwells. I wasn't bothered by its presence there. Retail convenience is a good seldom noticed, except when absent.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at November 30, 2006 10:36 PMYeah, the article in The Atlantic doesn't actually reference big-box stores at all. I get the impression she's talking about things like restaurants and, I don't know, The Gap or something. The kind of thing that would take up the same amount of space as the buildings downtown would allow. I'm all for allowing national retailers in downtown areas, but I think that tearing down the buildings you're trying to fill defeats the purpose.
Posted by: ryan at November 30, 2006 11:53 PMI'm not opposed to stores like the Gap being downtown at all. Better there, integrated with an urban landscape, than marooned in the middle of a giant parking lot in suburbia. I think they'd probably even do more business in say, the blocks around Boston Common, where people could just be walking by, than they do in a place where people have to make the conscious decision to drive 10 miles to get there.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at December 1, 2006 8:07 PM