Hacker News Reader

Comment by ravetcofx | Hacker News Reader

I really don't like supporting Costco as it's the antithesis to good urban design. It's not healthy for people to be living so separated from shops that stores like costco end up with 1000 car parking lots. Grocery stores should be on every other corner or so of every neighborhood within walking distance. Prices would be kept low due to healthy small business competition. Costco is mearly a symptom of the sickness that is Euclidean zoning.

View on HN

Costco isn't a grocery store, it's a retail bulk warehouse. Shopping daily at it makes little sense, nor does shopping daily at a small store for items at a higher price for most incomes. Good urban design would place it further away as it's a destination shopping trip intended less frequently. Public transportation would have more storage space for bags and either a public or store delivery service would get larger items home.

You should be hoping that Costco stays in business and large every day grocery stores (Kroger, Target Grocery, etc.) don't last.

They make costcos with apartments on top now. The big issue I think is the quantities are prohibitively large. Cereal is sold in 1 foot square cubes. Granola bars in huge 30 count boxes. Oil by the gallons. You can fill up your modest apartment very vast shopping at costo if you aren't careful. You almost need a basement or garage with storage racking to make the most of your membership.

There’s a Costco in downtown Vancouver, it’s great. I just use a cart to pull my groceries home rather than taking my car and parking (it is next to the hockey and football stadiums and shares underground parking). Sometimes I just walk in to grab the eight dollar rotisserie chicken.

What a markup on the chicken in Canada

Is it markup, or less farm subsidies?

Costco doesn’t prevent the things you mention, you should come to my area in NYC. Within 3 blocks I have 3 supermarkets and maybe 12 smaller markets and corner stores. Within a mile I probably have 20-30 supermarkets and one of them is Costco.

A lot of the owners of the smaller markets actually shop at Costco. And you don’t need a car to shop there, you can bike and there are people with vans outside who will take your bike and groceries back home. Costco also offers local delivery.

I wouldn’t say it diminishes from the urban design you mention, in many ways it facilitates it.

It's great to have a place to buy bulk items every month or two. It's not a symptom of bad zoning, and can happily coexist with small local groceries.

There are at least 3 costcos that I know of in NYC and they are always packed. Even those living in hyperbolic zoning love costco.

Hyperbolic zoning, I like it, that's clever

I live in Tokyo which arguably is one of the most transit friendly cities, and still bus to the nearby Costco to load up every month or two. Sometimes you just need a suitcase full of mozzarella sticks, no questions asked.

I'm in California, so that is true anyway. But at the same time, I'm in a suburb so "walking distance" is still talking a mile up the hill minimum. The woes of having so much space.

But on the other hand, every supermarket had 1000 car parking lots to use that space with. Even smaller stores will have ~100. One thing I definitely don't miss compared to downtown city planning that nickle and dimed me everytime I wanted to stop.

Costco has a markup cap of 15% which keeps prices low.

Their parking lots are also also the standard for customer friendly design with the buffer spacing that sacrifices car density.

Tl;dr: I wouldn't choose Costco to make your argument, LOL.

I think about this a lot as an avid lover of Costco.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to travel by PEV/Bike to one but there's another Costco near me which is assailed on all sides by freeways and would be impossible to reach by anything other than car.

>Prices would be kept low due to healthy small business competition

This doesn’t work. Small businesses have a price floor set by their tiny scale and lack of leverage with suppliers.

You must hate the USA as its exactly what you hate.

I live 2 blocks from a Costco Small Business Center. It’s great as nobody else has chosen to put a grocery store in the neighborhood.

My local Costco is closer to the urban core than any comparable general goods store.

Then good urban design is wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com