I replied to a twitter comment the other day about the importance of independent retailers on our city streets. I implied that Vancouver suffers from boring streets downtown because new development tends to price out independent retailers:
I pointed out to three specific chains: Flight Centre, Cash2Go (but for
this post, pretend I said Money Mart, and Starbucks. It got me thinking
and I decided to see where they were in the downtown peninsula. Here are
the results:
 |
| Location of Flight Centres |
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| Location of Money Marts (but really, I would like to see any loan place on this map) |
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| Location of Starbucks. Some are so closely located they can't be accurately pinpointed so they're clumped into groups. |
Convenient or over-kill/boring? Obviously, there is a demand for these locations since they're in business but is there a reason for you to visit Robson Street over Metrotown or any other mall in the region?
A lot of this, I would guess, is that downtown Vancouver has rapidly and extensively been rebuilt just recently. New ideas needing old buildings and all that. In time, these bland streets should mature into something more interesting. (The most interesting indie retail in Toronto is arguably not on Queen Street but in the post-war strip malls in the inner suburbs because there are a lot of aging buildings with low rents.)
ReplyDeleteBut also NIMBY restrictions on growth in most other parts of the city are certainly inflating land values and rents, which makes it more difficult for independent retail to get started across the city.
An intermediate solution, rather than waiting for buildings to deteriorate or get unfashionably old, might be to require an overabundance of retail space in new buildings to drive down the price of rent. But those costs might be passed on as even higher housing prices in these new buildings. (So you address one monoculture and worsen another.)
Housing prices are horrible in every big city in Canada, especially downtown. It kills the social life and forces people to go to the same marts over and over again.
ReplyDeleteI generally think that this is happening in every big city in North America. What we need is more culture and interesting stuff happening in the downtown, to attract more people and make them think - legal graffiti, street theaters or Improv in Toronto. Entertainment is the key, not housing prices.