New and Old #184
Friday roundup and commentary
NEW JERSEY & CO.; Megastores are Making Over the Highway Retailing Landscape, New York Times, David W. Chen, April 2, 1995
I actually came across this article years ago and then lost it, and only found it again because a Reddit thread I was reading about an old supermarket linked to a blog post that mentioned a store called Sneaker Stadium, which triggered my memory that Sneaker Stadium was mentioned in this article.
It’s about the rise of big-box category-killer stores in the 1990s, with a segment on Route 22. When I was a kid, around the same time, we would frequently drive down Route 22 for a day of shopping and then dinner out. (We loved a cozy little Japanese restaurant; a Japanese-themed Chinese buffet I insisted on one evening was not very good. You can still go back in time on Google Street View and see what I believe was the ornamented doors of the buffet’s storefront. That very same shopping center, on the other end, now has a Chinese buffet in it once again.)
We’d stop at the giant Target Greatland, the Tops Appliances, the Guitar Center, and probably a bunch of other stores. Of the handful of childhood memories that probably spurred my interest in the topics I write about, watching the evolution of a highway commercial strip in real time is one of them.
It’s really fascinating to me that as recently as 1995, the idea of big-box stores was still kind of newfangled:
Along six major highways in the northern half of the state, retailers are moving in and getting bigger. “For Lease” signs in front of vacant stores have been replaced by signs that say “Opening Soon” on hangar-sized buildings.
Retail vacancies fell to 3.2 percent in 1995 from 5.3 percent the previous year, according to a recent survey conducted by R.J. Brunelli and and Company, a retail leasing firm in Old Bridge.
Many analysts agree that the retail sector has rebounded somewhat after several years of slugishness. But they point out that shoppers’ appetite for bargains has favored the proliferation of “big boxes,” giant stores of more than 15,000 square feet with no frills and discount prices.
And:
On Route 22 between Union and Somerville, Tops Appliance City, Sneaker Stadium, Staples and Pet Food Giant are the newest tenants.
This is good news for shoppers who like one-stop bargain shopping and don't miss the personal service that shops in small downtown areas often provide.
These stores that were seen as sort of innovative are now kind of passe. The only one to still exist is the Staples, I believe. Sneaker Stadium and Tops were actually regional/state chains based in New Jersey. I can’t even find anything about Pet Food Giant.
This crop of stores turned out to be a waystation or transitional form between the older, smaller stores and the national big-box chains that dominate retail now. The idea of a regional category-specific chain with 20,000 square-foot stores is kind of quaint now. Interesting.
America’s Trial Courts Have a NIMBY Problem, Reason, Christian Britschgi, October 1, 2024
Writing about a judge striking down Arlington, Virginia’s missing middle housing reform, Britschgi says:
More broadly, his rulings suggest even the most modest locally initiated changes to single-family zoning in Virginia will be vulnerable to court challenges.
Arlington’s EHO has been in the works since 2015 when the county passed an affordable housing master plan that directed policy makers to explore ways of allowing more missing middle housing. A draft EHO was first published in May 2022, and went through multiple rounds of public comment and revision.
The final product was exceedingly modest. It allowed between four and six units of housing in single-family zones, while retaining existing limits on the height and density of new residential development in those zones.
And this is the point that I’ve been thinking about in regard to this:
“It would appear there’s a recent trend of at least some trial courts subjecting upzoning, increases in density, to a test that's different than what’s been applied to zoning in general,” says Charles Gardner, an attorney and research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.
Over the past hundred years, courts have generally been willing to accept any government reason for passing zoning restrictions on density and housing development, says Gardner. When it comes to more recent laws paring back those restrictions, however, courts have taken a more skeptical “nitpicking approach,” he says.
It’s a good piece, and easy to read for someone who doesn’t know policy well, on an interesting dimension of zoning reform.
This reminded me of my recent piece comparing two small New Jersey towns. I wrote of Flemington, the town I grew up around:
More abstractly, there’s maybe an identity crisis. Is Flemington the history-infused quaint New Jersey small town it had been seen as for a long time?, and which most of its residents understand it to be? Is it an up-and-coming destination? Is it a New Hope-style hip New Agey haven? There’s a little bit of all of that that you pick up, and maybe it’s too small to contain all of that.
Clinton, on the other hand, simply does quaint New Jersey small town very well. And yes, the whole question is how and why do they do it well, but the absence of a sense of uncertain identity is a positive.
I bet Flemington has had consultants trying to help it craft some kind of theme/identity/narrative. I didn’t really know this existed, but Herndon, an old rail town near my current home, has been trying to do this.
The town’s brand rests on four general pillars. Its close proximity to D.C. and Dulles place value on its location, historic downtown provides a distinct experience than other suburbs, a friendly small-town spirit permeates the community, and ethnic diversity is an integral part of the town’s identity and character.
However, some community members said the town government appears to struggle with its own identity. Most see the town as a place to live, not a place to visit or own a business. Feedback from people who don’t live in Herndon suggested that issues like crime, infrastructure and the perceived quality of its schools give the town a negative reputation.
This is really interesting: Flemington also has a fairly large Hispanic/Latino population, though not this large.
Despite the breadth of the participants, town council members said more work needed to be done to capture the views of different communities who now make up a majority of the town’s population.
According to Census estimates, Herndon is 37% Hispanic, 35% white, 16% Asian, 7% Black or African American, 1% Native American and 4% multiracial or “other.” A majority of residents (53.7%) speak a language other than English at home.
A fairly large percentage of them are probably immigrants, and most are probably working class. I bet they don’t think much about the town’s “brand.” It’s just a good place to live with good proximity to jobs. Which is what most communities are. I’m kind of conflicted on how useful the idea of branding and promoting towns is, versus just getting the basics right and letting people find you.
Some great pictures in here.
Today’s city-hopping tourists may be shocked to discover just how recently some of their favorite selfie spots were glorified parking lots. Cars filled Lisbon’s central Praça do Comércio until 1997, and Florence only banned parking in the Piazzale Michelangelo — which has the best views overlooking the city — in 2014.
The cities that have taken this step are all very different, but the dramatic transformation of their iconic squares — recovered for residents and visitors alike to enjoy — raises the question of why such spaces were allowed to be dominated by cars for so long.
I want to note a rhetorical thing. I’m not sure I’d refer to the restoration of these old squares as a “dramatic transformation,” as if something new were being done to them. The headline captures what’s happening here better. Car-dominated spaces aren’t being turned into car-free spaces; historically car-free spaces are being made what they are, once again.
This is one of those areas where I think being a conservative is useful. It makes you attuned to this sort of thing—understanding that some people hear words like “transform” and “revolutionize” and just assume whatever it is must be bad. Words are very important.
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That's an interesting comment about crafting a town's "feel", or I suppose the current term is "brand". I would think that people looking for a place to LIVE are interested in a community's "fundamentals": can they find a house they like; can they afford a house they like; is the journey to work acceptable; are the schools good (if they have children); can health care, dental care be found within a workable distance; are community services (garbage/recycling pickup, water/sewer, road, sidewalk, trail maintenance) handled well? I personally would add community library to that list. And then there are the aesthetic considerations - good restaurants, a decent coffee place, shopping...
Well down on that set of aesthetics would be the town "brand". I might appreciate a quaint look-and-feel in a community, but that won't drive a decision to live there. In my own experience the communities that have leaned hard into the town "brand" thing have done it for outsiders, for tourists. Probably the most overt about this was a visit to Leavenworth WA, where a sort of Bavarian vibe was recommended by marketing consultants from U Washington several decades ago. That was unusual because it was a deliberately chosen "brand". More typical is New Glarus WI, which has leaned hard into its Swiss immigrant heritage for its town look-and-feel. It's nice for me as a visitor, but I think I would balk at living in it.
Obligatory Jean Shepherd "Route 22" video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rke5xFNO0og comment.
East of Harrisburg, 22 has some similarities, but with fewer jughandles.