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Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼
@Noahpinion
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People need to realize that the key to making walkable urban spaces great is SMALL RETAIL BUSINESS. The reason America doesn't have spaces like this is because we don't make it easy to start small retail businesses in places like this (or anywhere).
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JR Urbane Network
@JRUrbaneNetwork
N Americans: "High speed railway viaducts ruin neighbourhoods." Japanese high speed railway viaduct:
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David Shor
@davidshor
How big a role do you think Japan’s explicit subsidies here play? And also how much of a factor do you think it is in Japan’s low retail productivity?
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Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼
@Noahpinion
1) Not sure, great question obviously 2) Probably a small role, given that productivity is similarly low in almost every other industry.
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Predrag Brajovic
@PredragBrajovic
"The reason America doesn't have spaces like this is because we don't make it easy to start small retail businesses in places like this (or anywhere)." No, the problem is you don't have high speed railways.
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Laura Powell
@LauraPowellEsq
Our severe problem with crime and homelessness in many of our cities these days is a big reason such spaces are not viable.
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Kaid Benfield
@Kaid_in_DC
But this isn't 2010 anymore. This is a very, very tough time for retail, with very few shops surviving. People shop in different ways now. Need to think about different approaches in the age of disappearing retail.
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Andrew Swirsky - Water Technology
@Andrew_Swirsky
Because small businesses have the same cost of permits and government fees. Higher costs for healthcare, insurance, and cost of capital. It's much harder to run a small retail business than to be a mid-manager in a big corporation. Right now I can get a small business loan for
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Patrick W. Watson
@PatrickW
These work because the rail network brings foot traffic to the small retailers in and around stations. Most of the US has nothing like that. Our car dependence is as big a problem as the regulations.
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Dan Grech
@dangrech
It is just staggering how many hospitality businesses work in Japan that can seat no more than 10 people at once. In the UK this is completely unsustainable.
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Ilya V.
@nfinf5
It’s not hard to start such a business in America, it’s quite easy actually. What is hard is to run it profitably, and it’s hard because of customer habits and existing development patterns. Small retail businesses will not work in places where few people regularly walk. In US,
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Allen Hunter
@allen_hunter
People find small retail businesses charming for ambience and city aesthetics. It’s just too bad that when they want to buy something they like a wide selection and low prices.
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Benjamin Earley
@earley_benjamin
Retail businesses do not need much space. Food menus have slimmed down, and the need to hold physical inventory is reduced with rise of on-demand fulfillment.
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Christopher Ehrlich
@ccccjjjjeeee
imo biggest difference is small restaurants run by 1-2 people that a person with avg income can afford to eat out at daily would take many things to achieve this in america (and eu)
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Jordan Jackson
@samehueasyou
was there not a trend in place like new york at one time that these businesses were once subsidized by apartment building developers? obv not super scalable but makes sense
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T-cell, PhD
@Tcell_bodyshot
Small businesses are critical, but social order cannot be ignored. People need to feel safe, not be harrassed, and not have to walk around addicts and the malingering dissolute.
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transriphean bede
@txnftxnf
The only small retail businesses I love were things like 24 hour coffee shops with no customers so I had the whole space to myself. In other words, businesses that don't make any money.
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FrugalBC
@BC_Kowalski
In my 20s I worked in a dying mall. Hardly any store left. Corporate would not cut any kind of deal. The place couldn’t have been more desperate for businesses. Suffice it to say, that mall is now dead and buried.
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Tim Ellis
@timellisau
Feel as well that people don't want to run and operate a truly small business. They want something they can start, then expand, then turn into a franchise then win the world.
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Dr. Julie Gurner
@drgurner
First of all, they have high speed rails... In the 60s, their trains were lapping ours in 2024. I don't hold out high hope for our infrastructure catching up anytime soon.
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Sascha Jürgens
@agilofingr
Japan is a paradise of thriving small retail businesses and even small artisanal manufacturers that pop up in areas where you wouldn’t expect them, also compared to Europe
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Neil @ LaunchBox
@launch_better
I was recently at Disneyland with the fam, and the scale of Anaheim is 🤯. But ‘downtown Disney’ is walkable, human scale, and packed. I think locals love it (can any locals confirm?). Creating interesting streets is easy. You just design them for humans. The stores will
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supercollider
@supercollider_x
america is allergic to: - small stores - small restaurants - stores and buildings closer together - homes/apts intermingled with stores when will they realize that this is how people want to live (at least i do)
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wojinald
@wojinald
The bureaucrats who run transit in major cities only ever agree to retail in if it comes with expensive handouts to favored special interests. They simply need to get out of the way.
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Torsten Jacobi
@jacobi_torsten
Living through Japanese summer with just rail and no cars is miserable. Long walks at extreme humidity and crowds. Crowds are being ‘pushed’ through retail outlets - better be in a car cool and listening to music.
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George Saoulidis ⚡
@saoulidisg
You guys hate small businesses in the US. It's apparent. Either you go enormous or nothing at all. There wasn't a walkable place anywhere I visited
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BetweentheX
@betweenthex
Every shop in that picture is part of a megaconglomerate, Family Mart has like 25k stores. Though it could be a franchise, which I wouldn’t mind calling a small retail business I guess?
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Probable Spam
@emailjobenjoyer
Why doesn’t every city skyscraper connect to all adjacent skyscrapers via covered 2nd story pathway, littered with retail businesses? Leave the street for the cars and bikes and busses and trains.
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Michael Clark
@midpushMike
I'm into Home Depot, Walmart, and online shopping. What gives with this? And note that most Farmers Markets are just price gougers and seem bent on a combination of Communism and rampant Capitalism.
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Desert Pretzel
@surlygopher
My list: 1. Make it easy to start a small business. 2. Build enough so that rents are cheap (both retail & owner/worker housing). 3. Enforce rules & norms regarding acceptable public behavior. 4. Have the space prioritize people (& their safety/comfort) over cars & parking.
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Oxnard Montalvo ۞
@JordanGuatqui
Simple way to begin to fix this is to allow any residential property to open a retail business on the ground floor, and to allow any commercial property to add residential uses. Universal mixed use.
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big_pedestrian
@big_pedestrian
WALK up small business in neighborhoods are wonderful. I’m in Sacramento and walked from my old timey bed and breakfast to this cute little cafe. Instead of a patch of grass and weeds, the front yard is seating (with plenty of gaps) for 14 people. 🥰
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brian treacy
@briantreacy6
What makes it harder to start a small retail business in the USA than Japan? I would have thought that having the walkable urban spaces is what leads to these small retail businesses due to foot traffic
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Ernest Hemingwhy
@drsugarray
I walked thru a ‘market street’ in a nice suburb last night. It was full of high end retail, because those are the only companies that can afford to rent the space. No one there could afford it. These spaces would be amazing if they were full of more affordable retail stalls.
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Jersey Mike
@sturmovikdragon
Due to limited state capacity to enforce rules, difficult licensure makes the consequence of rules violation much more significant, resulting in the same level of deterrence at a much lower price point.
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Katherine | We're Not Going Back
@Katherine_Mel_B
I'm realizing this after moving to Chicago last week. There's tons of thriving small businesses everywhere, and it's because they can actually compete with the big chains, so going there doesn't feel like a philanthropic act of good will.
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Reclining Bear 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦 🥥🌴
@Reclining_Bear
The biggest obstacle seems to be rent, and paying employees enough to afford rent. Anywhere walkable is so desirable that rents tend to be very high.
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R Adrien
@RAdrien2
The yimby crowd needs to focus on more than just building big multi-unit residential housing, as it promotes density without walkability. I’ve seen this first hand.
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The Map Center 🗺️📍
@EcoAndrewTRC
Small retail business owner here: Taxes, start up capital, regulations and laws are really tough hurdles at the beginning when most small businesses wash out. Pop up retail is common because commercial rent is high and most can't rely on their biz for sole source of income.
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Tim
@timpplex
1997 cap gains cut followed by Bush cuts put Wall Street in charge, allowing publicly traded national chains to squash independent small businesses. Net gain in efficiency, but all profits flowing to investors, hollowing out small towns and middle class.
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Sivaram Velauthapillai 🍁🦫
@Sivaram_V
Isn't it because the same businesses are less efficient than larger ones? America is more efficient hence costs/selection/etc are way better. The downside, of course, is the walkability aspect. After all, why did malls kill off the small neighborhood shops in 1960s?
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Square Horse Unicorn
@AdamDawidowicz
Yeah, it strikes me when I'm in USA how corporate everything feels. But it's another way around - you need walkable cities to bring small retail business in. They wont be created if there's no space for them.
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Thomopolis
@thomopolis
We have this in some places, and they are amazing. The shops that went into the SF Ferry terminal are so packed every day that a thriving outdoor market built up around it to supplement.
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Art Carden
@artcarden
I'm always amazed that there probably *is* someone who looks at a pic like this and says, "I'm glad our city requires each building to be surrounded by a lake of parking spaces; if it didn't, it might look like this hellhole."
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James Dali
@JamesDali2
The reason is the invention of the car and how historical distribution of cars took place. Most EU cities are way older and the tow centers were already solidified when the car came
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Isra Ferrer Camacho
@rallat
This is not a highway though, there is a train station above, so it is only normal that people walks from and to the station.
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Greg Janik
@gpjanik
urban planning from 1960s, motomodernism etc., regulation exists everywhere. it's accumulation of many factors
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Chris
@pattern4
No, it's crime and homelessness. No way this underpass would not have graffiti, tents and armed robberies after a few weeks in the US - no matter what retail businesses there are.
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M Sinclair Stevens
@sinclairstevens
Exactly! As I plan a return visit to Japan, the thing I'm most looking forward to is all the little shops and restaurants. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Endless variety. When I think of America it's just the sameness of strip malls...every city pretty much like the other.
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Solus
@Ersatz_Solus
Isn't a lot of the reason why Japanese productivity lags so hard is because they artificially prop up their small time services and retail sector? There seems to be a distinct trade off here.
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Jeff Nelson
@nelson26141
The reason this is hard in blue cities is because they regulate and tax it to the max and then let someone put up a table outside on the sidewalk to sell, without a license or any taxes, items stolen (without penalty) from the legal shop.
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Nwa'ard Sayir
@autistpassing
the problem ive seen is a lack of certain types of small business. theres plenty of fun stuff in downtowns like bars cafes shopping etc. how about a butcher? a tailor? somewhere to buy furniture & other home goods? you often have to drive to the suburbs or edge of town for that
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YouCanCallMeKnuckles(UnlikeSonicIDon'tChuckle)
@BanannaSlamma64
Moynihan Station in New York is an example of a failure on that part. There are places there yes, but they are all exclusively high-end and low-quality, priced like they're in an airport. Old Penn Station had decent affordable places to eat - this new station is just sad.
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black job haver
@realworldrj
We walked through the meat packing district a couple of weeks back and it was amazing. And then walking through Chelsea market was like being in another country. Imagine if that can be expanded 10x and everywhere, my god!! (And with fewer cars and next to train stations)
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