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Comment by cabaalis | Hacker News Reader

So there just...wasn't one? The Bronx is 57 square miles, with a population density of 35000/sqmi. The town I live in is 58 square miles, with a density of <2000/sqmi.

I searched "bookstore" on google maps around my town, and quit counting at 13.

Can someone explain the benefits of living on top of one another in such a congested area when nobody delivers services even as basic as a bookstore, while my podunk place in "flyover country" has now 13x the number of available outlets for something like this?

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There was one near co-op city, but it closed a few years ago.

There are also several specialty book stores, e.g. the NY Botanical Garden has a really good one, there is a Jewish bookstore in Riverdale, etc.

Because The Bronx was largely designed for residential housing, it's very easy to just hop on the subway or in a car and get to a bookstore in a few minutes. It's actually much easier to get from The Bronx into Manhattan or into Westchester, Fairfield County, New Jersey, etc. than it is to get to other parts of The Bronx. So other than that some people seem to be morally offended by the fact that there isn't a general purpose bookstore in the borough, there isn't really any especially good reason to have one.

"out of sight out of mind" is reason enough to have one. people may serendipitously walk into a bookstore and change their lives; doesn't work the same when commuting.

Residents of the Bronx are still primarily disadvantaged minorities, many reliant on public services. Many NYCHA public housing developments are in the Bronx. The lack of things like bookstores reflects the lack of financial resources of the community.

> Residents of the Bronx are still primarily disadvantaged minorities, many reliant on public services.

This is probably true by total population, but not by block. That is, on most blocks most people are middle class. That's why there is no shortage of wine and tapas bars or whatever.

I think the real reason is that most independent bookstores are subsidized by the surrounding community in order to raise real estate values or add character to the town. In places like NYC these types of businesses often get subsidized by real estate developers who want to raise the rates in their surrounding apartment buildings, but most areas of The Bronx don't have dense enough cores for developers to make money on real estate speculation.

Mott Haven and Port Morris are some of the only areas where this actually works, so that's probably why the bookstore is going there rather than where the owner grew up or wherever.

This doesn't surprise me at all. As a fellow podunk flyover-country dweller myself, we get so many benefits from everything being kind-of shitty, that no one seems to acknowledge.

A bunch of fun but barely-profitable things can exist here, that could never exist in a city, simply because of how hostile dense urban economics is to human beings.

> A bunch of fun but barely-profitable things can exist here, that could never exist in a city, simply because of how hostile dense urban economics is to human beings.

The same kinds of things can exist in dense urban environments when they're otherwise terrible places to live, like NYC up-thru the '90s.

I would say or write that they're 'aggressive', not hostile. There's lots of reasons why the (economics of the) same areas are perceived to be incredibly welcoming. Density itself is (or can be) amazing, e.g. more (potential) customers, many more competing employers.

I imagine quite a few of those are either A) A place to get coffee and hang out B) Not making much money, but kept open by people who just want to own a bookstore.

A) is the model a lot of Barnes and Nobles are going with these days; they're attached to some sort of cafe and people leisurely walk around with their coffee and read whatever. This model doesn't make much money when people won't buy terribly overpriced coffee.

B) is all over Denver, with owners living in the buildings they run their bookstore out of. I have no way to confirm, but I can't imagine they're making much money.

It could be wifes of people who are making a lot of money, with the wife not having another career. The wife has something to do, and the husband has something to declare losses to pay less taxes.

This comment is like something out of the 1950’s.

    > ...while my podunk place in "flyover country" has now 13x the number of available outlets for something like this?

There are many reasons why bookstores might choose not to set-up in the Bronx or now even in Manhattan.

Whatever the reasons, real bookstores everywhere are rapidly becoming nostalgic throwbacks to a different era.

They're not a "basic amenity" anymore. This will soon catch up with your (as you describe it) "podunk place in flyover country" just as surely as your town has left behind acid-wash jeans and mullets in the year 2013.

The number of independent bookstores in the US has been consistently rising for the past 10 years.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/282808/number-of-indepen...

Perhaps, but are these places like the magnificent but now gone St Mark's Books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mark%27s_Bookshop) or are they just christian bookstores and comic book shops?

They're regular bookstores. There has been a lot of press on this sort of thing. This article is representative:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/once-endangered-bookstores-are-...

What’s the problem with Christian or comic bookstores?

Do the same problems apply to the Muslim or Jewish bookstore in my neighborhood? Should I be concerned with them - there’s funny symbols! (I don’t think there’s a Christian bookstore)?

Does St. Thomas Aquinas, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky belong in “Christian” bookstore, or in a “normal” bookstore?

If in a “Christian” bookstore, do you have a problem with Tolstoy?

If in a “normal” bookstore, is Tolstoy’s work no longer Christian?

Is “Persepolis” bad literature for being a comic book?

Not everyone chooses to live in the Bronx - some are born there and aren't able to leave due to economic factors.

A bookstore is not a basic. It is a nice to have, but not required. Maybe midwest culture values bookstores more than the New York culture? I wouldn't want to live there if that was the case, but that just shows my midwest cultural bias.

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