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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/10/business/downtown-full-delivery-warehouses-dark-stores-are-coming-boston/
Probably paywalled.
Most storefronts in dense city neighborhoods are small and cramped. The pandemic lockdowns may well be over, however, the reluctance to be in a small, cramped place with strangers has lingered. Also, for all that people attribute the desire to and habit of shopping online to the pandemic era, Kozmo was a long fucking time ago, and the pendulum swings of Going Marketing and coming back with stuff vs. Having Things Delivered has been a part of civilization for as long as there have been settlements.
There are odd criticisms in this article.
“ “This is essentially just as bad as a vacant storefront for the commercial district or main street,” said Jonathan Berk, principal and creative director at Bench Consulting, an urban planning firm in Boston. “You have no foot traffic coming into and out of the store aside from hourly workers and you’re actively discouraging trips from area residents to pick things up in their neighborhoods, eliminating the potential of spending money at other nearby business.”
Greg Lindsay, senior fellow at MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, put it another way: “It’s stealing the energy of the city.””
There are two conflated issues here. One is the problem of “eyes on the street”. When there are people coming and going, they help to keep streets safe from the things that happen when no one is watching. The other issue is the potential pipeline collapse. If you have a very popular restaurant that is often completely full when people would like to go there, other restaurants can get their start by being sited nearby, and serving the disappointed. Similarly, co-located antique stores, used book stores, etc. at various points in my own personal shopping past. Dense blocks of boutique clothing stores are another example, altho I don’t really participate in that. Replacing Go Marketing operations with We Deliver operations will move the bycatch to the web —- that’s fine, that is where it all is anyway — and as has been observed more than once in the past, commercializing the “eyes on the street” is often more effective than relying upon the crowd to do it “for free”. Basically, a street full of delivery operations is going to function more or less like a street with a bunch of doormen. I will note that this is going to be slim pickings for homeless — there will be consistent pressure from the businesses (rather than inconsistent) and the couriers are NOT going to be dropping random 20s the way a tourist might.
““We don’t want these companies to be like Uber, which showed up and destroyed the local industry,” Francisco Marte, the founder of the Bodega and Small Business Association, told Bushwick Daily. Should bodegas be forced out of business, it will only mean more vacant spaces for these stores to scoop up. “We have to prevent that so that the bodega industry doesn’t disappear.””
Mr. Marte correctly understands his job — “we”, his business association and its members, are experiencing an existential threat. The journalist quoted that in a way that tempts the reader to insert themselves into the “we”. Don’t fall for that.
“Jon Shaer, executive director of New England Convenience Stores and Energy Marketers Association” is quoted as well. Shaer will figure out that this is an existential threat to the gas station C-stores … later. That’s an electric car story, which this story very much is not.
A market owner, Gad, comments on the Whole Foods and Stop & Shop bags he sees being delivered. ““We always look for the remote control, even though we could get up and press the buttons on the television,” he said. “People like the easy way.”” One wonders if Gad has seen a modern TV.
This article draws numerous comparison between the impact of Uber on taxis, and the probable impact of small delivery operations on bodegas.
“Some analysts warn this whole industry could amount to a flash in the pan, pumped up by investors chasing the next big idea and winding up not so different from the business it aimed to disrupt — just as their startup ancestors, Uber or WeWork, did.”
Yes, because Uber and Lyft definitely are gone and the taxi industry is going strong. What?!? “Not so different”?!?! One of the big VC funders of Uber _tried_ to get the taxi industry to innovate and have apps and prioritize rides booked through an app over street-hailing. A lot of people have never really digested the fact that if you _called a taxi company_ and _booked a ride_ with the dispatcher a day or week in advance, _that taxi_ might well abort on taking you where you really needed to go because someone hailed them while they were driving to you. I, personally, have had to call for more than 3 taxis in a row, back in the Bad Old Days, in order to get even one to show up, because the others all diverted to other fares. That was how I learned about car service. Uber didn’t replace taxis. Uber democratized car service. Taxis are stupid and they always were. Just like you couldn’t get a taxi on some streets, you couldn’t get decent produce in some neighborhoods. Would you rather everyone owned a car in order to Go Marketing to get decent produce? No. And that’s why the Whole Foods bags. And that’s why we now have storefront delivery operations.
I get gentrification has a lot of very, very real problems, and I _also_ get that everyone in this article has enough self-awareness and/or self-preservation to not suggest this is gentrification. But it _totally_ is gentrification, and it’s all the good parts and very, very, very few of the bad parts.
I do sort of wonder, tho. If the bodega exists solely to supply Ben & Jerry’s and Gatorade in the Future World, will the bodega be replaced with ice cream shops that sell Gatorade? Because, not gonna lie, that is a tantalizing prospect.
Probably paywalled.
Most storefronts in dense city neighborhoods are small and cramped. The pandemic lockdowns may well be over, however, the reluctance to be in a small, cramped place with strangers has lingered. Also, for all that people attribute the desire to and habit of shopping online to the pandemic era, Kozmo was a long fucking time ago, and the pendulum swings of Going Marketing and coming back with stuff vs. Having Things Delivered has been a part of civilization for as long as there have been settlements.
There are odd criticisms in this article.
“ “This is essentially just as bad as a vacant storefront for the commercial district or main street,” said Jonathan Berk, principal and creative director at Bench Consulting, an urban planning firm in Boston. “You have no foot traffic coming into and out of the store aside from hourly workers and you’re actively discouraging trips from area residents to pick things up in their neighborhoods, eliminating the potential of spending money at other nearby business.”
Greg Lindsay, senior fellow at MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, put it another way: “It’s stealing the energy of the city.””
There are two conflated issues here. One is the problem of “eyes on the street”. When there are people coming and going, they help to keep streets safe from the things that happen when no one is watching. The other issue is the potential pipeline collapse. If you have a very popular restaurant that is often completely full when people would like to go there, other restaurants can get their start by being sited nearby, and serving the disappointed. Similarly, co-located antique stores, used book stores, etc. at various points in my own personal shopping past. Dense blocks of boutique clothing stores are another example, altho I don’t really participate in that. Replacing Go Marketing operations with We Deliver operations will move the bycatch to the web —- that’s fine, that is where it all is anyway — and as has been observed more than once in the past, commercializing the “eyes on the street” is often more effective than relying upon the crowd to do it “for free”. Basically, a street full of delivery operations is going to function more or less like a street with a bunch of doormen. I will note that this is going to be slim pickings for homeless — there will be consistent pressure from the businesses (rather than inconsistent) and the couriers are NOT going to be dropping random 20s the way a tourist might.
““We don’t want these companies to be like Uber, which showed up and destroyed the local industry,” Francisco Marte, the founder of the Bodega and Small Business Association, told Bushwick Daily. Should bodegas be forced out of business, it will only mean more vacant spaces for these stores to scoop up. “We have to prevent that so that the bodega industry doesn’t disappear.””
Mr. Marte correctly understands his job — “we”, his business association and its members, are experiencing an existential threat. The journalist quoted that in a way that tempts the reader to insert themselves into the “we”. Don’t fall for that.
“Jon Shaer, executive director of New England Convenience Stores and Energy Marketers Association” is quoted as well. Shaer will figure out that this is an existential threat to the gas station C-stores … later. That’s an electric car story, which this story very much is not.
A market owner, Gad, comments on the Whole Foods and Stop & Shop bags he sees being delivered. ““We always look for the remote control, even though we could get up and press the buttons on the television,” he said. “People like the easy way.”” One wonders if Gad has seen a modern TV.
This article draws numerous comparison between the impact of Uber on taxis, and the probable impact of small delivery operations on bodegas.
“Some analysts warn this whole industry could amount to a flash in the pan, pumped up by investors chasing the next big idea and winding up not so different from the business it aimed to disrupt — just as their startup ancestors, Uber or WeWork, did.”
Yes, because Uber and Lyft definitely are gone and the taxi industry is going strong. What?!? “Not so different”?!?! One of the big VC funders of Uber _tried_ to get the taxi industry to innovate and have apps and prioritize rides booked through an app over street-hailing. A lot of people have never really digested the fact that if you _called a taxi company_ and _booked a ride_ with the dispatcher a day or week in advance, _that taxi_ might well abort on taking you where you really needed to go because someone hailed them while they were driving to you. I, personally, have had to call for more than 3 taxis in a row, back in the Bad Old Days, in order to get even one to show up, because the others all diverted to other fares. That was how I learned about car service. Uber didn’t replace taxis. Uber democratized car service. Taxis are stupid and they always were. Just like you couldn’t get a taxi on some streets, you couldn’t get decent produce in some neighborhoods. Would you rather everyone owned a car in order to Go Marketing to get decent produce? No. And that’s why the Whole Foods bags. And that’s why we now have storefront delivery operations.
I get gentrification has a lot of very, very real problems, and I _also_ get that everyone in this article has enough self-awareness and/or self-preservation to not suggest this is gentrification. But it _totally_ is gentrification, and it’s all the good parts and very, very, very few of the bad parts.
I do sort of wonder, tho. If the bodega exists solely to supply Ben & Jerry’s and Gatorade in the Future World, will the bodega be replaced with ice cream shops that sell Gatorade? Because, not gonna lie, that is a tantalizing prospect.