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Streetcars also encouraged businesses to concentrate downtown. Automobiles the opposite. LA didn't lose its concentration of businesses until the automobile (started pre-war for LA, but LA adopted the automobile earlier).
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Little connection to today's pattern. Many of the more expensive districts were outer districts. Some of have stayed well-off, others have not, as former residents moved to the suburbs. Much of Manhattan was, ironically, the cheap rent part of the city.
I thought, from reading this forum, that streetcars encouraged business all along their routes. Too, not everyone worked downtown in "the good ole days". In Pittsburgh in the Big Steel days, while the steel executives may have worked "dahntahn" (downtown), the guys (and they were all guys) making the steel worked on the "sahsahd" (southside) or out in the burbs such as Homestead. It was the same in my hometown of Beaver Falls. There were no mills in the downtown area, though there was a factory within walking distance of everyone in town (though most didn't walk to work and many lived out in the burbs, far from walking distance to their particular job).
Re: the bold, that must have been a long time ago. As long as I can remember, Manhattan was considered the "high end" of NYC, and I'm old enough to be most people's mother.
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Originally Posted by darkeconomist
If they exactly duplicate one another, such as having two (instead of one) of the same fast food restaurants because an area is highly decentralized, then there is a cost associated with that duplication. Each receives less business because of the other, which was one point I was attempting to make.
Not necessarily. A McDonald's on the east side of City X doesn't take away business from the McDonald's on the west said. Unlike fine dinng, there's a limit as to how far people will go to eat fast food.
As long as I can remember, Manhattan was considered the "high end" of NYC, and I'm old enough to be most people's mother.
Well, most of it was significantly cheaper (i.e., LES, UWS, Hell's Kitchen, etc.). Yes, the money has always been concentrated in Manhattan, but the island had more affordable rents back then than it does today.
Manhattan used to be a fairly affordable place. I wouldn't mind dealing with the stench of stale urine, a little more trash, and open air prostitution for cheaper rent in the city.
There are 2 Dunkin Donuts in my town within less than a 10 minute walk from each other. One is without parking in the center of town, so they appeal to two different markets. Relatively centralized area, but Massachusetts really likes Dunkin Donuts.
Likewise in Seattle. There are several McDonald's. One of them is located downtown and has no drive-through or parking. Another one is in Ballard. Assuming everyone in Seattle who stopped for breakfast really wanted some McDonald's for breakfast enough to the drive downtown, pay $5 to park, and then drive all the way back, would this centralization be a good thing? The cost of a McGriddle breakfast is probably minimally different between locations, and one super-McDonald's could meet the demand. Are all these McDonald's really adding no value? Or does the convenience of not having to drive for thirty minutes and pay $5 to park (or take public transit) provide some value? What about the cost of every single person in the city of Seattle commuting downtown during rush hour to get their McGriddle fix? Does that make any sense? Or does convenience have value? Isn't that the purpose of mixed-use? Sure, it might be redundant and value-less to have dozens of small neighborhood grocery stores. They all provide the same thing, so why not have one economies of scale SuperDuper-WalMart where the entire city goes rather than all these non-value adding neighborhood markets in walking distance of where people live. The "overuse of the car" does push things in that direction, although not nearly to the extent of one block-sized McDonald's downtown or SuperDuper-WalMart.
I guess part of it was wanting to show that things weren't as rosy back in 1945 as some on this board, many of whom weren't born until probably 1985, think.
You should expand on this. Not only do many people on this Board pine away for the good ol' pre-1945 days, they also have a torrid love affair with nearly all things European.
"In Europe, unlike America, voters are informed and sophisticated."
"We need light rail. They have it in Amsterdam."
"In France, they don't even keep track of race in the census." (even though they force muslim schoolboys to shave their beards).
"In Europe, people walk everywhere. Unlike America where people drive from their McMansions to the mailbox."
"San Francisco has a year long Mediterranean climate!"
"Americans are not sophisticated enough to appreciate futbol. Unlike the Europeans."
It's almost like (liberal) Americans still have some inferiority complex about not being able to cut it in England. Americans were, after all, European rejects. If only America could be more like Europe, and go back to its pre-1945 streetcar days, life would be so much better.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 06-26-2012 at 01:33 PM..
Well, most of it was significantly cheaper (i.e., LES, UWS, Hell's Kitchen, etc.). Yes, the money has always been concentrated in Manhattan, but the island had more affordable rents back then than it does today.
Manhattan used to be a fairly affordable place. I wouldn't mind dealing with the stench of stale urine, a little more trash, and open air prostitution for cheaper rent in the city.
Even today there are parts of Manhattan that are cheaper than parts of Brooklyn, etc. There are some relatively affordable parts of Manhattan. And these days, the LES is more expensive than the farther east stretches of the UES.
Likewise in Seattle. There are several McDonald's. One of them is located downtown and has no drive-through or parking. Another one is in Ballard. Assuming everyone in Seattle who stopped for breakfast really wanted some McDonald's for breakfast enough to the drive downtown, pay $5 to park, and then drive all the way back, would this centralization be a good thing? The cost of a McGriddle breakfast is probably minimally different between locations, and one super-McDonald's could meet the demand. Are all these McDonald's really adding no value? Or does the convenience of not having to drive for thirty minutes and pay $5 to park (or take public transit) provide some value? What about the cost of every single person in the city of Seattle commuting downtown during rush hour to get their McGriddle fix? Does that make any sense? Or does convenience have value? Isn't that the purpose of mixed-use? Sure, it might be redundant and value-less to have dozens of small neighborhood grocery stores. They all provide the same thing, so why not have one economies of scale SuperDuper-WalMart where the entire city goes rather than all these non-value adding neighborhood markets in walking distance of where people live. The "overuse of the car" does push things in that direction, although not nearly to the extent of one block-sized McDonald's downtown or SuperDuper-WalMart.
That's not a fair comparison. You're comparing extreme centralization of services with very mild decentralization. So, of course, a giant McDonalds might not be the best idea. But, extreme decentralization leads to a Starbucks on every corner. That's as inefficient as much as having one giant Starbucks in the center of town would be.
That's not a fair comparison. You're comparing extreme centralization of services with very mild decentralization. So, of course, a giant McDonalds might not be the best idea. But, extreme decentralization leads to a Starbucks on every corner. That's as inefficient as much as having one giant Starbucks in the center of town would be.
Fast-food type chains (or non-chains) aren't really good examples of the benefits of centralization. McDonald's has the same menu everywhere. Ditto with Starbucks or Dunkin Donut's. Past a certain there's little benefit to making a McDonald's/Dunkin Donut's store bigger.
I did a google maps search to see how many McDonald's are in Manhattan and in an outer suburb in Long Island. The amount of McDonald's seemed to scale with density of people passing by. NYC is very centralized but McDonald's didn't build a few big stores. Instead they coated the island with lots of them (I couldn't count them all, probably at least 3 dozen). Most areas had multiple McDonald's within walking distance (as I said, I don't live in a big dense city, and I have two Dunkin Donut's within walking distance). Many people don't think "I want McDonald's", many think go "I'm hungry and want quick food, look there's a McDonald's". The more McDonald's people might pass by (either walking or driving) the better their business will be, a few big fast-food stores (or coffehouses, pizza places, etc.) is a bad business idea. Manhattan has McDonald's that have "Walk-thrus" open 24 hours.
On the other, density and centralization is a benefit for less frequent but larger quanitity shopping. It's worth going out all the way to Downtown Seattle for a big REI. Manhattan only has one huge Macy's, while the outer suburb county in Long Island with a similar population has several. With centralization, you get more selection at the Manhattan Macy's and from the high density it's not much trouble to for people in a large section of the city to visit one Macy's. But no one will take a half hour train ride (or drive) to go to McDonald's.
I thought, from reading this forum, that streetcars encouraged business all along their routes. Too, not everyone worked downtown in "the good ole days". In Pittsburgh in the Big Steel days, while the steel executives may have worked "dahntahn" (downtown), the guys (and they were all guys) making the steel worked on the "sahsahd" (southside) or out in the burbs such as Homestead. It was the same in my hometown of Beaver Falls. There were no mills in the downtown area, though there was a factory within walking distance of everyone in town (though most didn't walk to work and many lived out in the burbs, far from walking distance to their particular job).
It's easy to forget about industrial jobs because so many of them are gone, the mill buildings around here look like they're usually within 1-2 mile from the centers of town rather than right in the center.
What I meant was: before automobiles smaller, local neighborhood stores lined the streetcar lines. Not everything was downtown back then, but the bigger businesses meant to serve most of the metro were usually downtown in a centralized location since the transit lines converged there. Larger department stores and offices were usually concentrated downtown. Many cities today the big shopping areas have moved to malls, suburban "power center" and the offices have moved to suburban office parks. True, centralization can lead to longer commutes. But in a small city, it doesn't make a huge difference. A lot of smaller upstate NY and New England cities have lost of shopping from the downtowns. Springfield, MA's downtown is rather dead but 100 years ago it looked something like this:
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
While you can argue whether the change has been for the better or worse, either way it's a drastic change.
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Re: the bold, that must have been a long time ago. As long as I can remember, Manhattan was considered the "high end" of NYC, and I'm old enough to be most people's mother.
Look at the link I posted and click on Legend. It's from 1943, so yea, it's a long time ago. But even for decades later, Manhattan had the highest crime rate in the city and was parts were known as seedy. There are some high, very high rent districts in Manhattan (as you can see from the map) in 1943. That's probably why it was thought of as the "high end" part of NYC especially for people not from there. But outside there was a lot in the lowest catergory. East Central Park, the immediate section to the east is in the most expensive catergory and then it drops to the cheapest catergory.The other parts of NYC were more middle of the road (though, northern Brooklyn had a large cheap part — some of that is now the more expensive part of Brooklyn). Manhattan used to be attractive to poor artists / bohmeians; now they're mostly priced out. Here are some reasons I can think of:
1) Unlike Pittsburgh, there was a lot of industry (smaller scale, though) in the city center, especially at the waterfront areas. Not too pleasant to live in
2) City may have been less white-collar so there was less highly paid workers to concentrate by the city center
3) Much of the island had old tenements. It wasn't too many decades before that immigrants filled them
Speaking of Manhattan, I think this was an interesting story of a woman who lived on the same city block for 100 years (her grand-daughter is living in the building she owns and used to live in):
I was saying the vast majority that was demolished was substandard.
Even if true, that would not imply that demolition was the only or best solution. Consider the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where much of the housing was substandard as late as the 1980s, but today apartments in the exact same buildings are now among the most valuable rental housing in the country (per sq. ft.)
That's not a fair comparison. You're comparing extreme centralization of services with very mild decentralization. So, of course, a giant McDonalds might not be the best idea. But, extreme decentralization leads to a Starbucks on every corner. That's as inefficient as much as having one giant Starbucks in the center of town would be.
Interesting how not so long ago Starbucks shut down a bunch of its stores for that very reason. Starbucks isn't really interesting in that I used to be able to walk my dog to Starbucks in the morning; they're only interested in maximizing their profits. Starbucks is going to do it's best to have the optimum number of stores for Starbucks. If that means a Starbucks on every corner (figuratively), why not? I'd certainly like to have my neighborhood Starbucks back rather than having to go two miles for coffee where the is a Starbucks and independent coffee house that I prefer within two blocks of one another.
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