Comment by benrbray | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benrbray | Hacker News Reader

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I think cars are largely to blame for the sorry state of small businesses. Before moving from America to Tokyo, I had never lived in a place with anything even remotely resembling a walkable city center where you can easily browse and pick up what you need from local businesses. Everything is separated by a 15min+ drive, and I likely need to get on the highway to get there. Atlanta was the worst for this.

In Tokyo I have at least 3 daily grocery stores within a 10 minute walk, plus dozens of other small shops selling all kinds of things I might need. For specialty ingredients I've made an effort to hunt for specialty shops importing Indian, Thai, and Chinese ingredients. My favorite place to go is probably Kappabashi, a street lined with dozens of restaurant supply stores.

I've learned which places I should go for which items, and I love the variety it adds to my routine.

And whenever a city in the US proposes some improvements to the ped/bike experience in a shopping area, the local small business owners will cry bloody murder. As someone who also prefers to walk to nearby stores, I feel no guilt whatsoever about buying stuff online instead of a local merchant. Amazon, for all its faults, has never showed up to a local planning meeting in my town to lobby against a sidewalk or bike lane improvement.

Why do you think that is? I'm not too familiar with local politics. Generally, I believe studies have shown that banning cars from main street in small/medium cities generally increases business, but I've heard of a phenomenon where all the non-main-street businesses make an uproar about how "unfair" it is that main street will be getting more business, and so the whole idea is scrapped.

I agree, haven't lived in tokyo but I've had similar thoughts and experience going from Chicago/NYC to cities like Austin

You are in tokyo. Come on.

Tokyo is not Niigata, or Sendai, or Saitama.

The tokyo bubble is not the same as the rest of japan

I didn't say I was in Sendai. Human societies were designed to a human scale for thousands of years before cars started dividing us all up. American suburbia is one extreme, and Tokyo is another. Somewhere in between, I'd like to think we can find a balance in city design that allows us all to choose the mode of transportation that is most suitable for the journey.

I think the variety of city types is good too. I live in the suburbs of Austin and it suits me perfectly. I wouldn't be happy in a city like Tokyo (although I haven't been there since 1997).

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