Life is Good With Neighborhood Retail
Much of the political structure in Washington DC seems to be in the grips of a perverse terror that someone, somewhere, might try to open a business near to where potential customers live. Meanwhile, people spend a lot of time wishing there were more things to do and places to shop. Excellent local blogger 14th and You observes:
Imagine strolling through the leafy streets of Georgetown, Shaw, Capitol Hill or other DC neighborhoods. Rather than having commercial corridors expressly laid out along only a handful of specific streets and blocks, picture those shops, restaurants and other businesses interspersed within residential areas. Impossible to imagine in DC? Most likely, but it’s something that you encounter frequently within even the toniest areas of London. In the middle of Chelsea, which contains some of the most expensive real estate in the world, you’ll find commercial strips lined with pubs, restaurants, supermarkets, bookstores, homewares and more. It’s not considered scandalous to locate a pub at the corner of an otherwise residential street. It creates a far more vibrant neighborhood, and not to the detriment of the people living there.
In DC, zoning laws make that idea prohibitive, and what the zoning laws don’t cover ANC and neighborhood groups do in their zealousness to protect residents from interspersing residences with commercial activity. This isn’t a call for unfettered development everywhere in the District mind you, but rather a call for a more sensible adoption of DC zoning laws–as well as local neighborhood opinion–that would ease the nearly complete prohibition of commercial development in otherwise residential sectors. This type of zoning leads to vast swaths of blighted commercial corridors (found in certain central DC neighborhoods) and contributes towards more residential neighborhoods being underserved by commercial activity. Finally, such development also encourages cohesiveness and a greater sense of community within neighborhoods, where the corner cafe or market down the street becomes an additional focal point to residents of the neighborhood.
I really and truly wish libertarians would spend more time working on this kind of issue. And I also wish that ordinary people would think harder about these kind of regulations. I’m a big government liberal. I believe business regulations are often needed. But still, there ought to be a presumption that people can do what they want. When “do what they want” turns out to be “emit tons of air pollution that’s devastating the planet” then in comes the regulation. Or when it turns out to be “make highly leveraged bets that, if they lose, require a government bailout” then you turn to the regulators. But “one guy who lives on the block would prefer to see the restaurant located somewhere else” is not a particularly compelling rationale. In a crowded city, it’s not possible for everything to be exactly how everyone wants it to be, so the current dynamic in a place like DC winds up just favoring stasis and nothing ever changing.
53 Responses to “Life is Good With Neighborhood Retail”
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May 27th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I don’t know about London, but in the US, when pubs and restaurants are near houses, the people living in those houses complain. A lot. Not saying they are the majority, but I think it’s a situation where everyone would love to have a pub the next block over, but not next door or even on the same block. That’s especially true if it’s not a business that they themselves frequent. When I lived in Columbia Heights, I loved living a few blocks away from Wonderland, but the folks living immediately adjacent to it didn’t seem to. And the criticism of the gentrifiers regarding the bars/clubs with predominantly Hispanic clientele was really very shrill and angry
May 27th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I think this is easy enough to boil down to one issue. Liquor licenses. Look at a city like New Orleans where liquor licenses are freely available. They of course have a very tight (and boisterous) area in the French Quarter, but also some neighborhood joints interspersed.
I think if there was less regulation of liquor licenses you’d see more neighborhood type restuarants and pubs.
All that said, I think you grossly overestimate the density of DC if you think that DC could be a NY in waiting.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
It’s one thing to have retail in the neighborhood, on commercial streets that are separate from residential streets; it’s quite another to have the two interspersed willy-nilly. Retail might bring people together, but it also brings traffic and makes parking difficult for residents, and certain establishments–eg, bars–might bring about other problems. I would not want people spilling out of a bar next door at 2 am. Maybe that’s just me.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
There are institutional factors at work here: the ANCs are structured in such a way as to attract those who wish to lord their authority over others, styming those who wish to open restaurants, get liquor licenses, or do anything interesting. This is a case, like california, where there are too many veto points and the threshold to overcome them is too high.
Like thesis committees, the price of neighborhood involvement is that everyone feels like they have to be “involved”, which usually means that they need to raise objections and hear their own voice for a while in order to feel like they’ve contributed to the process.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I really and truly wish libertarians would spend more time working on this kind of issue.
OK, but who will pay them to do so?
I don’t mean this as snark: I really think the seemingly strange priorities of many of the nominally libertarian institutions is driven by the fact that they need to get funding from somewhere.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
In Baltimore there is a corner store or a bar on damn near every corner.I hate to sound snarky, but the problem with DC is that a large percentage of the population is made up of lawers or political types who think that everything should be controlled or regulated.
I find it interesting that this is the one issue where MR YGLESIAS does not take the liberal position.I am not making fun of him for that.I am just curious as to why he is libertarian about this one issue and not others.
As for MR YGLESIAS’S claim that libertarians should focus on zoning issues. Many already do.It is one of their biggest pet peeves.The problem is that often MR YGLESIAS has a problem differentiating between libertarians and the republican party. After 8 years of George Bush’s big government conservatism ,one would think that MR YGLESIAS could tell the two apart fairly easily.
On the other hand, If the republican party actually started to focus on small businesses and their zoning problems,instead of pandering to big businesses. Many free market conservatives like myself ,could actually vote republican again.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Isn’t this pretty much the Institute for Justice’s beat?
May 27th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
While I support and sympathize with the impetus for greater mixed-use development; it is the best model for sustainability and equity. As DC is currently comprised, as a racial/class stratified town, the work of “neighborhood groups” to oppose such efforts is meritorious. Most often, the “neighborhood groups” represent the cities long-time inhabitants whom wish to stay in their communities. While mixed use is helpful, philisophically, in the absence of both mitigation from expulsion, it is not a one size fits all solution.
What many people seem to ignore in the discussion of development are the very real concerns of displacment. I may be chided here for archaic pretensions, but just ask any long term resident in Columbia Heights, Petworth or Shaw if displacement has occured and whether they genuinely fear it.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I really think the seemingly strange priorities of many of the nominally libertarian institutions is driven by the fact that they need to get funding from somewhere.
That and they’re also silly assholes.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Is it really neighborhood associations in DC that are stopping or slowing neighborhood retail? I used to live in a gentrifying neighborhood in Atlanta. The folks who generally showed up at the nieghborhood association meetings (which in Atlanta actually wield a good bit of power) in my inner city neighborhood generally understood urban concepts very well and shared of vision of a better, more urban neighborhood, with more, much more commercial within walking distance. That’s why we all moved there rather than to the suburbs!
And the move has definitely been to mix residential with retail in Atlanta over the past 10 years. They don’t always do this just right, but they are at least on the right track.
There are a number of nice residential neighborhoods in ATL where the locals have welcomed restaurants and retail right smack in the middle of quiet residential streets. It has made these areas much, much nicer.
The issue of liquor licenses, however, that is something else. Definitely a lot of the moms and dads were drawing the lines at new liquor dispensing establishments on residential streets. And probably they had a point. Bars work great on residential streets made up of 4 and 5 story buildings. But for neighborhoods of single family homes, they really are a bit too loud.
And to further DTMs point, nominally libertarian institutions are typically libertarian when it is convenient to be so. Scratch about 90% of libertarians and you’ll find a down the line Republican who just doesn’t want to admit when he/she is.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
excise “both” from paragraph #1
May 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Bob,
What your looking for is basically the way my neighborhood in Portland is laid out. The main through Streets running N-S are 21st and 23rd, they are predominately businesses with a few apartments and Condos. The eastern border is a Freeway cutting the city at roughly 17th so that St is mostly businesses, 18th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 24th and 25th are mostly residential with just a few businesses the western border is a series of hills that start around 25th, the old money lives on them:-). The neighorhood runs about 30 blocks N-S, the Southern Border is a busy street that is mostly businesses the Northern border is a Highway. There are about 3 or 4 E-W streets that are primarily businesses, the rest are mostly residential, lots of big old craftsman and Victorians some still single family homes but lots converted into multiple units and a lot of modest height (5-6 story) apts and condos.
The thing is a neighborhood like this isn’t something you can build overnight, it grew organically over 100 years, if you build one new all at once you get a Disneyland with a bunch of chain restaurants and generic condos. But what you do need is the right zoning that allows all the mixed use.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I think that it should be also said that the people who are affected the most by strict zoning laws tend to be the poor and working class.Rich people can drive to another neighborhood to do there shopping or to eat out.And a rich business owner can find ways to get around zoning.
It is the blue collar man or woman that has a dream and a little bit of money who suffers the most.They are often willing to work 14 hour days to make their business work. But zoning can shut them down.
I agree with MR YGLESIAS in that we should have laws protecting people.We need health inspectors and laws preventing pollution ,ect.But too often lawmakers get carried away, and this hurts the mom and pop businesses the most.Often the big companys actually like some regulations for this very reason. The regulations and zoning rules often keep down compitition.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I will just say this: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Made much the same point as Matt–in 1961.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
REGARDING ROB MAC’S COMMENT # 10
MR ROB MAC
I would have to respectfully and partially disagree with you about bars on residental streets.
In my hometown of baltimore we have corner stores and bars on many street corners.I live on a small street made up of 2 story rowhouses and there is a corner bar on it.There is one on every 4th or 5th corner.And nobody really minds.
I understand your point that some bars can be loud. In those cases the liquor board should enforce the rules about rowdy bars that are usally allready on the books.
As i said ,i see your point and I mean no offense in disagreeing with you.
Best regards to you MR ROB MAC
May 27th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
In Baltimore there is a corner store or a bar on damn near every corner.
Like Boston and NYC, Baltimore came into existence early in US history and were built similar to a European industrial city model (multiple neighborhood “centers” mixed use, high density. Later US cities tend to have less of this structure.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Eric K — why go to all the trouble of thoroughly describing Northwest Portland if you’re not going to mention that most of those streets (Flanders, Kearny, Quimby, Lovejoy, etc.) gave their names to Simpsons characters? Have you no shame, sir?
Also, I think that even NW Portland is more strictly zoned than Matt (or I) would deem necessary. I doubt you could put a bar on the far side of the Thurman St. bridge, for example. Won’t someone think of the rich, hill-challenged pedestrians?
And MR PETE FROM BALTIMORE? Your capitalization is insanely fucking annoying.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I gotta say, moving to DC from Brooklyn–one of the things I miss most is the residential retail. I lived over a corner store in Brooklyn. Across the street was a butcher. A couple of doors down a baker. Etc.
Closest thing to me now is a block-and-a-half away 7-Eleven–which doesn’t even sell beer (didn’t know those existed). After that it’s four blocks to any commercial stuff.
Another thing I’ve noticed is how crowded DC bars and restaurants are compared to those in New York (really!). It seems there’s just less supply. Anybody have any stats on retail square feet per capita here compared to New York?
My idea is that’s one reason why the average restaurant’s food here is weaker here than in NY. Open a halfway-decent joint and you’re pretty much guaranteed to pack it out.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
The problems in DC really do stem from far too many fucking lawyers (said one DC lawyer) and the generally insane people who tend to get elected ANC commisioners. And this madness is worst in Ward 3, the least dense, whitest, highest income part of the city, where yours truly works and dwells. There is a ridiculous lack of density around some of the Metro stations and building a high rise (which in DC means 8 to 10 stories) apartment or office building with retail is considered to be the equivalent of setting off a dirty bomb.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I don’t know about London, but in the US, when pubs and restaurants are near houses, the people living in those houses complain. A lot.
Maybe you should get out a little more. In addition to all the other US cities people have mentioned above, I’ll give a shout out to Chicago as well. Your argument “Things are the way they are because that’s the way people want them to be” is the same ridiculous argument that’s given us the sprawlscape that the US has become. Pretty much every desirable place to live in the US has a bar within walking distance.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Curly,
We gotta leave some surprises for people to find out on their own. Plus being a Simpson’s theme park does kind run counter to the image we like to maintain, Sheesh Groenig you’re a writer, couldn’t you have been a little more creative than simply using the street names you grew up around?
And yeah the rich people in the West Hills probably are just as nimbyish as your typical gated community suburbanites, but we get our revenge by making it impossible for them to find parking when they venture down off the mount for a drink:-)
May 27th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
There’s a little tavern on a residential street in my little Philadelphia suburban borough, homes on either side of it, right near where the little “business district” abuts the residential areas. Of course some people don’t like it but it’s been there forever and even though you have to step outside to smoke now, they’ll never get the cigarette smell out of the place. They also serve a pretty good fish sandwich. I live about a block and a half from it, and the other day I saw the local blind guy and his service dog stepping out of the bar — it was a nice sight. I don’t know the blind guy except by sight (no pun intended), but it always impresses me to see him heading to or from the train station, smoking his pipe and holding his dog, during his commute to and from wherever he goes during the day. He’s had the service dog for just the past 2 or 3 years; before that he used a cane.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
In New Orleans, not only do we have corner bars everywhere, but we do not have prohibitions against drinking in the street – so you can take your unfinished beer in a go-cup, walk home, and finish it on your couch.
It’s pretty much the best thing ever.
Right now I live 2 blocks from a bar that has live music at least 3 nights a week and a fabulous jukebox – and I’m moving one block closer this weekend!
We have small, walkable blocks, corner stores (although they’re becoming less common), interspersed retail, and probably the most vibrant small business corridor in the South (Magazine Street)… New Orleans had new urbanism before it was new!
May 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I don’t know about London, but in the US, when pubs and restaurants are near houses, the people living in those houses complain. A lot.
Maybe you should get out a little more. In addition to all the other US cities people have mentioned above, I’ll give a shout out to Chicago as well. Your argument “Things are the way they are because that’s the way people want them to be” is the same ridiculous argument that’s given us the sprawlscape that the US has become. Pretty much every desirable place to live in the US has a bar within walking distance.
Your last sentence is laughably untrue, at least, as measured by the places that people choose to live. I wouldn’t necessarily to spend much time with such people, but there you have it.
Anyway, my whole point is that people do want a bar within walking distance, but don’t like when it’s within stumbling/smelling/hearing/puking/pissing distance. I would personally be the last person to complain about something like that, but (and this is the really funny part given your comment that I should “get out more”) having grown up in Brooklyn and subsequently lived in New Orleans, Baltimore, and DC, never anywhere with a walk score below 90, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about it. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen; I agree it should. But that’s why it doesn’t. Sorry if you misunderstood me
May 27th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
In this post MR Yglesias asks about why more libertarians aren’t concerned with these type of issues.Actually one could ask why democrats and republicans do not talk about these issues more.
The answer is that too often our two political partys prefer to throw red meat to their bases.Their bases tend to be bored with stuff like zoning and infrastructure and actual governing.
As proof ,i would point out that this post has 20 comments so far. On MR Yglesias’s posts about racism and reverse racism there are usally over 100.
I am not saying that the issue of race is not important.I just think that hard core liberals and hard core conservatives prefer to call each other names then actually discuss the nuts and bolts of governing this country.The fanatics in either party do not like to comprimise or come together in agreement.Their whole identity is based on us vs them.They despartly need an enemy.
If you read the comments on MR Yglesias’s posts on racism , you will find a lot of name calling ,but very few solutions proposed.On posts like this one you will generally find the oppisite.
I am not trying to be self rightoues about this. I do feel that this is why the problems of America tend to get ignored.Unless they can be used to energise the party’s basees the partys simply are not interested.
The republican party in particular needs to get serious about governing . Discussing Zoning and infrastructure may not get a politician on Rush Limbaugh’s show.But it does make voters think that the politicain is an actual adult who is capable of governing.
May 27th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Another thing to point out. Government sponsored roads are largely responsible for how spread out and uninteresting most of downtown America is.
May 27th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Those who wonder why people love love fucking love living in New York, including Brooklyn, and Boston, here’s your answer people. How unfortunate that the old-style commercial and residential mix doesn’t exist elsewhere.
And Baltimore is arranged the same way? Glad to hear it.
May 27th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
It’s considered scandalous not to locate a pub at the corner of an otherwise residential street.
Fixed. I realise it’s different in more car centric places, but from a European perspective, US zoning laws look insane.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
it also brings traffic and makes parking difficult for residents
But one of the points here is that you shouldn’t need to drive (or be driven) to the bar in an area of, say, “streetcar suburb” density.
There’s a difference in Europe between local pubs/bars, in residential areas, and more raucous downtown areas where the bars are interspersed with commercial space. They attract a different clientele. Of course, that’s premised on the idea that you’d want to spend time with the people from your part of town, which can be hard if, as is often the case, your friends are scattered around. (Public transit makes a difference here, of course, as it does in London.) But it’s also built on the idea that you might be able to go out for a “cheeky pint” instead of planning a night on the town.
I grew up next to a pub. It sometimes got a bit loud for a quarter-hour at kicking out time on a Friday night, but otherwise, no hassle. Just perhaps people saying good night to one another as they walked home.
The ideal model, though, is something close to the Dutch brown-cafes. Coffee and cake during the day, glass of wine or beer at night.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Test
May 27th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
In NYC this kind of intermingling is everywhere. It makes the city fabric much more varied. Almost any neighborhood has the potential to have something interesting happening, because there are places where people can meet, talk, eat, drink, perform, watch performances, et cetera.
I think it also makes it more possible for neighborhoods to regenerate themselves. If a neighborhood is out-of-the-way, or has a bad reputation, a few restauranteurs, artists, shopkeepers, and saloonkeepers can often plant the seeds of new life, by making a formerly undesirable place into a hip destination.
The idea that residences should be strictly segregated from most forms of public life is historically recent (and anomalous). I get the impression that many people in DC are transplanted suburbanites who still don’t quite grasp what city living is about. (Unfortunately, that’s true of most Americans these days.)
May 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
By the way, Matthew, your commenting system is bipolar about me. Sometimes it lets me post, and sometimes it eats my comments. It seems to prefer it when I post from my home computer rather than my work computer, but sometimes it’s the other way around.
I tried posting the comment above several times today. It never showed up, but I kept being told it was a duplicate comment that had already been posted. Just now I had to change the wording in order to get it to post.
I hope your tech gremlins can figure this out.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
A combo of residential and retail is part of why I love my little corner of NW DC – Palisades. I’ve got resturants of a variety of price categories, some take-out, some w/ liquor licenses – one even has live jazz. Starbucks, banks, drycleaners, corner & specialty markets, beauty salons, the vet and a Safeway all within a mile along MacArthur Blvd. But mixed in with residential and beautiful trees in the median, so the neighborhood has a definite residential feel.
So it can be done, even in the District. But the land use pattern was set decades ago when the area was developed post-WWII, so it’s just evolved. There’s no fight over whether a site is going to be repurposed.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Your last sentence is laughably untrue, at least, as measured by the places that people choose to live.
No, actually that’s incorrect. In the US, people choose to live in places with decent public schools. Because of *many* historical factors, including redlining, and the segregation of US school systems into little micro-fifedoms, that happens to be in sprawling suburban areas.
You’re right, though: When measured by the price that Americans are willing to pay per square foot, people *have* chosen where to live. And it’s exactly the places I pointed out. The fact that many, many struggling middle-class families are forced to make do with hellish, god-forsaken exurban wastelands is a sad sacrifice they make.
This is obvious by the sorts of places they decide to take their vacations.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Just would like to mention that back in the eighties I lived at California and Broderick in the Cow Hollow district of San Francisco. Across the street was Major Ponds, a great bar and jazz venue. Less than a block down the street was Churchills, a working mans bar. The Firehouse barbeque. The Viking Sub was open til four aye emm. Directly across the street was a big church, the pastor let me park my motorcyle up by the front door anytime after nine pee emm.
It was the best neighborhood I’ve ever lived in, and it’s completely fulfilling to be able to walk across the street for a nightcap and some music. I’m not sure how anybody could find a downside in that…
May 27th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Get off my bar!
Just kidding; Things do seem particularly onerous in DC regarding location, density, etc.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Bars work great on residential streets made up of 4 and 5 story buildings. But for neighborhoods of single family homes, they really are a bit too loud.
Nothing about a bar is inherently loud. The same regulatory bodies that contrive draconian zoning restrictions could soften them with noise-reduction requirements that basically make them adhere to existing noise ordinances. I think a bigger problem with sprinlking bars around low-density neighborhoods is that it basically guarantees a nightly stream of drunk drivers.
Also regarding noise complaints, I should mention that I live in a neighborhood that’s said to be as dense as Manhattan, in which virtually every residential block contains some configuration of bars, cafes, restaurants, shops, galleries, and other small businesses, and in which very few bars close before 6 AM, and in which there are more live music venues and rowdy clubs than I can count, and more all-night liquour stores than anyone could ever want. And yet, I can’t hear a thing. Dead silent. I walk outside, and in 5 minutes I can be in some of the biggest clubs in the world, getting drunk in any kind of bar, even buying legal hookers or decrim drugs, and yet on the street I’m never confronted with any dodgy characters, harassed, threatened, or forced to witness an embarassing display of drunkenness; the only fight I’ve seen was with snowballs, and the biggest danger is the occasional speeding bicycle. Apparently this is the horror that people who support weird zoning laws are afraid of.
Regarding the situation with pubs in the UK – they are well-distributed, but they tend to all close at one rather early time, and it’s at this precise hour that crime and public nuisance peaks in their vicinity. The argument there is not against corner pubs, but against closing times. And more different stuff to do after 6 PM other than get drunk to the pub that closes at 11.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:06 am
There are actually some libertarians who are good on this subject. Jane Jacobs, whom someone mentioned up-thread, is quite popular with some libertarians (for example, Jesse Walker at Reason).
I’m a libertarian myself, and I’ve written extensively on the issue here.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Regarding the situation with pubs in the UK – they are well-distributed, but they tend to all close at one rather early time, and it’s at this precise hour that crime and public nuisance peaks in their vicinity. The argument there is not against corner pubs, but against closing times. And more different stuff to do after 6 PM other than get drunk to the pub that closes at 11.
The difference between Berlin and London is that in the latter city people get horrendously drunk Thursday to Saturday and tend to congregate in large crowds in front of pubs, laughing, arguing, screaming and sometimes puking and pissing. So the claim made in the article that pubs “are not to the detriment of the people living there” is simply not true in a general sense, you have to add a lot of qualifiers. It might be true in Chelsea, but certainly not in Soho, Shoreditch or Camden. And it’s even worse in more provincial places where the city centers turn into no-go areas on the weekends, I’ve seen this myself and it has been the subject of numerous TV documentaries. As for the licensing hours, I’m torn. Living next to a pub I am certainly glad that most of this is over by 12pm and I’m single and a nightowl, it must be much worse for a family with children. On the other hand I do enjoy living in a “vibrant neighborhood” for the most part and getting thrown out after 11.30 is annoying indeed. Some have made the argument that relaxing licensing hours would change the drinking culture, but since this has been done in some boroughs and nothing much has changed, I really doubt it. The interesting thing is that the Germans don’t drink less than the English, just differently.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:56 am
The interesting thing is that the Germans don’t drink less than the English, just differently.
It varies from region to region in Germany too, but to generalize, I would say that they drink more slowly – as in, they’re likelier to nurse one beer for an hour but stay out much later than their British counterparts. The British binge-drinking culture – which has been discussed at length in writings dating back to the 16th century and is probably well older than that – is pervasive enough that, in the absence of pubs, groups of drunk people will still occupy public space and create a public nuisance. If anything, the ubiquitous pubs appear to contain the problem somewhat – but only up to the point when they close.
As for Berlin, people here can and do get horrendously drunk on any night of the week – that 20% unemployment rate for young adults makes it safe to be hungover on Tuesday. But it works out being an enormous help that the diversity of non-alcohol-focused nightlife and recreational activities dilutes the number of bad drunks out at any given time to a minority among lots of people doing other things. On the other hand, when liquour joints dominate among the available services in a neighborhood, at some point it seems like no one outside is anything but drunk, which is a huge problem in the UK.
I’m not a libertarian, and I think there’s a good case for local-government intervention in licensing businesses. But rather than keeping any area purely residential, they should be striving to keep a diversity of business types according to each neighborhood’s needs in ways that the free market itself fails to do.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:34 am
“It might be true in Chelsea, but certainly not in Soho, Shoreditch or Camden.”
Speaking as someone who lives in Shoreditch, and has lived opposite a pub near Camden, it’s not so bad (for a childless person). I far prefer it to having to get a bus or walk for ages to find a pub. And being able to walk to a shop for food at all hours of the day is fantastic.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I have to like a business so endearingly modest that it boasts of having the 8th best jukebox in London.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I live in a small city with bars and other shops just around the corner from where I live and it is a huge pain and makes life much less pleasant. Every morning in the summer, when things are hopping, I have to round up the beer bottles, pizza boxes, and worse from our front walk and even front porch. Every night I hear fights in the street, car doors slamming, drunks swearing, motorcycles revving, live music blaring until 2 or 3 AM. Not to mention the occasional confrontation with a drunk or drunks about keeping the noise down in the middle of the night. Yes, you can walk to stuff, but I wish it were a longer walk!
May 28th, 2009 at 10:30 am
To me a unintended (and negative) consequence to having high traffic corridors is problematic parking situations in those (residential) areas closest to the corridor. I wouldn’t want to live too close to those areas because of that. Seems like spreading business around could alleviate some of the congestion and other problems that coalesce when they are forced along a narrow corridor.
Also, aren’t rents in these areas more expensive? In some cases possibly too expensive for anyone wanting to open a business that isn’t already extremely well financed or keep a long established business open when the real estate market is red hot and the landlords are really raising the rents?
May 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Here in Silver Spring we *almost* have that good mix of residential and retail. I can walk from my house with its leafy backyard to a great bar in about 15 minutes, and to neighborhood restaurants in 5. That’s not as close as I would like for the bar, but MoCo had ridiculous liquor laws; you’d think it was still Prohibition here, given the paucity of pubs.
Thank goodness it’s not Bethesda, though. Are there any drearier Metro stops than the commercial wastland at Bethesda? Metro stops should be vibrant, not deadly dull.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Spoken by a guy who has never had a restaurant move onto his block. I have. It isn’t that large or that busy, but it has no parking of its own. Consequently, I can no longer park anywhere near my own house. And I live on a long corner lot with about 8 adjoining streetside parking spaces. There is also a dry cleaner and a Mexican grocery, but people don’t park in front of my house for two hours to go into either of those.
This is the sort of thing that makes a neighborhood upset. There is a presumption that the people who actually live here, and pay taxes to maintain the property and the streets, and who only want to use one parking space, not 40, and who are not compensated for the inconvenience by the restaurant in question, have had their rights infringed a little bit. That may not be legally true, but to residents it feels morally true.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Paul, what about applying to your local authority for resident parking spaces? It’s everywhere here in London – you have to pay, but at least you get a reasonable amount of free parking spaces even in central London.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I hate to believe this is unique to DC, but I have never met people as crazy as those who sit on ANC and neighborhood groups. One group has committed itself to removing the liquor license of any establishment whose patrons may have drunkenly walked past their house on their way home. Another has taken over the public park across the street – planting grass and flowers, chasing people away, stalking dog owners and yelling at them – as though the park were its members’ own private front yard. Our ANC representive may actually be certifiably insane – she even frightens the craziest members of the neighborhood groups. Is there something in the water here? Should I move to Old Town before I turn into one of these people?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
DCEconomist, when I lived at Swann & 16th, there was a little park with benches where people liked to relax. A neighborhood group agitated to remove the benches so as to discourage people from hanging out in the park. I’ll never forget one woman claiming that people didn’t need parks, “since everyone has a backyard.”
May 28th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
To me a unintended (and negative) consequence to having high traffic corridors is problematic parking situations in those (residential) areas closest to the corridor. I wouldn’t want to live too close to those areas because of that. Seems like spreading business around could alleviate some of the congestion and other problems that coalesce when they are forced along a narrow corridor.
Better yet, it would reduce the number of trips that need to be made by car in the first place. When more people have a variety of goods and services within walking distance in their own neighborhoods, fewer people feel the need to drive to the high-traffic corridor and compete for available parking.
I live in a small city with bars and other shops just around the corner from where I live and it is a huge pain and makes life much less pleasant. Every morning in the summer, when things are hopping, I have to round up the beer bottles, pizza boxes, and worse from our front walk and even front porch.
Wait a minute…if there are beer bottles on your street, then the problem seems to actually be with people who are not drinking in the nearby bars, rather than the ones who are. With that in mind, it seems like having fewer bars – or making them close earlier – would result in an even greater number of people drinking beer in front of your house.
Also, people tend to overuse sidewalks more when there’s either too little public space or what is available isn’t conducive enough to relaxing and enjoying it. Better urban planning makes a lot more sense to me than heavier restrictions on small business.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I was thinking of this yesterday when I was at a bar in NE Portland. Pretty much you are in a residential neighborhood when visiting any of the numerous and unique water holes. Most may have their own block but most are right across the street from single family homes. Randomly placed throughout these establishments have locals drinking and being merry and then walking home.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Mike, I hear your pain.
I came back to this thread to post this link to a story about an ANC commissioner in NW DC who went on a campaign to remove the benches in front of Politics and Prose (a very nice bookstore), which includes a letter from the owners, begging the city to put a stop to this guy.
Just in case anyone thought the DC folks in this thread were exagerating.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:21 am
DCeconomist: Ah-ha! Would that happen to be the same ANC commissioner who tried to remove the ping pong table from Comet Ping Pong, i.e., the guy who suspects that somewhere, someone is having fun and just will not allow any of that to happen?