A comic uses fluid dynamics to explain how groups of people move

nautil.us

10 points·dnetesn··3 comments

In my city, I noticed that some shops in some streets keep changing hands over the years, and some are stable even if they don't look like they get a lot of traffic. I never investigated this or looked deeper into it, but I have a hunch that it also has to do with "fluid dynamics" in some sort of way. Meaning that the shop is located in a "low pressure" zone of foot traffic where people are either moving fast, distracted, or pushed away by some kind of obstacle. Or, the shop is somewhat less visible than the surrounding ones. This leads the shop to not getting many visitors, and eventually closing. I wonder if there's been any research behind this.

You made me wonder as well, thought back on my trips to Berlin and specifically about Spätikaufs.

There are so many in the city that even if you miss one close by during a stroll there will be another one to visit not too far off. Still if I'm on the lookout to buy something, missed one on the block, and I'm actively looking for the next one I do tend to skip some of them that in principle should've been more conveniently on my way (same side of the sidewalk, for example) due to the movement of people, or some urban structure placement around the shop, or some other unconscious reason.

I mention this because Spätis are quite "uniform" in their offers, some are bigger with more options but nothing that would make me choose one over another on a casual stroll, so no big market differentiation to change my preferences.

There's definitely something in this, hopefully someone has done research on it and some smart HN user can share it :)

The artist's site is

https://makinaro.com/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com