19 Comments

This reminds me of Tokyo. There are endless narrow streets and interesting stores and restaurants in a similar frictionless style. Surprise and delight around every corner that is just missing from most places I visit. Or will only exist for a block or two instead of neighborhood after neighborhood like Tokyo.

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Obviously I thought of that too (haven't been there, but have read about it/seen pictures of the famous tiny businesses) but I think small-scale commerce is pretty universal around the world. What other places (outside of U.S.) have been missing this sense of delight?

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I feel like Canada, since it’s so culturally influenced by the US, misses a bit of this too. But then when you go to Montreal you see little corner “fruteries” and bakeries everywhere and one does get a little: “why can’t we have things like the US?”

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Montreal is great. That feels fully "American" (North American, I guess) but it's like a slightly different timeline - like an old American city that missed urban renewal and didn't completely break with the urban past.

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I should say that Montreal’s post- WW2 suburbs have a far more American-style development pattern of separation of uses, but densities are much higher so stuff isn’t as far away and spread out as in America.

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“Things like this in the US” I mean

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Nice example - I wish there were more 'kiosk+' vendors in my city. US regulations should better scale to the scale of the enterprise. The hoops (red tape but also time and money) the sushi place would have to jump through today for building permitting and the health department are really the same for a 600 SF space as for a 6,000 SF space.

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Yeah exactly - the barrier I think is almost all regulatory (and lesser but also the existence of this kind of space, but that follows from the fact that it's hard to run it).

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Also versions of the same scale problem - finding a tenant for a 600 SF space is potentially just as time consuming as for 6,000 SF, lenders would rather back a $6 million project over one that's $600,000, etc. Missing middle housing falls into this development desert.

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Yeah. That's a factor. Another sort of laterally related thing is the financing. Even if a developer wants to do this kind of project the banks are not comfortable lending b/c of lack of comps, and there are no comps because there's so much friction in building like this, etc. etc.

I was just in Winchester yesterday for a meeting with their economic development head and he said the city wants to get condos built, and potential condo builders are having trouble getting financing because the city doesn't have a lot of condos so the banks don't have a good record to go off of.

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Don’t eat too much escolar!

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Yes, I've read about that!

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I lived there 20 years ago and can confirm that was there. Was an awesome little place to stop glad it is still kicking.

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Cool! Yeah, it's great. Honestly better than at least half of the basic strip-mall sushi or "Asian fusion" restaurants (Slightly "elevated" typical Chinese take-out menu paired with mediocre sushi, in most cases).

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Looks like you caught it at a good time — the whole place is closing https://www.arlnow.com/2024/04/30/breaking-all-remaining-crystal-city-underground-shops-to-close/

Article provides pretty good context to the place.

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Ugh, I saw that! Hope they can relocate!

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One of my favorite things about New York City is how many little spots like this you can stumble across just going about your daily life. At one point I was simply looking for a bathroom (why do we have so few public ones?? I'd gladly pay!) and came across a sign for a Target/Trader Joes. Went inside because I know those places always have public bathrooms, and it was an indoor mall. Cool, I followed the signs for Trader and it ends up leading me into a basement where there's just a random market hall with a bunch of little stalls like this. I ended up having a very unplanned lunch - this place was more explicitly designed to be what it was, but it was one of those moments that I know would have never happened in a "normal" city and I wish it were more boring.

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It's sort of a given in liberal culture to praise mixed use planning, with apartments on top of a walkable commercial district - coffee shops and bookstores and such. And so I've caught myself saying "yay" to news of new developments in that style. But when I really think about it and play out that lifestyle in my head, the idea of ceding the ground and personal green space to businesses, and defining all of daily living with a system that rewards rent-seeking, feels like a suboptimal compromise.

The town I just moved to actually strikes a really nice balance. Restaurants, barber shops, massage, groceries, parks and trails, all within a 15 minute walk of relatively small patches of suburb where we get nice amounts of private space and neighbors commune and chat in the streets after work. With just a few adjustments to the commercial tenancy, I could start going weeks without the car.

But I've often wondered, how long would it take to fix the *giant* ranges of detached/remote suburb that occur throughout the country, like the one I grew up in? A lot of coordinated displacement would have to occur.

Well here's an interesting solution... Build tunnels! Create a walkable commercial district below the suburbs. It never occurred to me before, but with your article here, it's a clear and enticing vision. Maybe there are practical reasons it can't happen in that order, or density-related reasons it wouldn't work out, or it's superfluous in the face of transit-based alternatives. But at the very least it could be a fresh and interesting layout for a fictional utopia.

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At one time, the subway in NYC had many underground businesses, including tiny places that sold everything from hot dogs to orange juice. This was in addition to shops that sold shoe shines, records, watch bands, books, news stands, clothing, small electronics and much more.

Most are gone — renovation, rent and food safety requirements took a toll along with decreased ridership, especially after Covid. There are still quite a few around, especially in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

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