> As for me,
> I follow the footsteps of Johns Kenneth Galbraith who belived that
> mega-corps can potnetially deliver more public goods than small businesses
> are ever capable of doing - so I have no problem when the city says move
> over to an operation of some shaky local establishment to build a Wal-mart
> that served thousands.
>
> This is all I have to say on this subject - I like big cities, big
> government and big organizations I think they canb provide more public
> benefits than a bunch of small shops. I have no sentiment for
> small-business, which ususlly means less choise, higher prices and lower
> wages - and littly if any neighborhood effect. It is a matter of taste. If
> someone else likes mom-an-po shopos, there is plenty of them in the Podunks
> of this land. I prefer thinking big, like the Big Apple.
Couldn't disagree more. Granted the density of Amsterdam is high even by European standards, but the matrix of small shops, daily open-air market, and (by American standards) pocket-sized supermarkets in my neighborhood means one can do all one's shopping by foot or by bicycle. As for selection, the local supermarkets are OK for staples, like four euro bottles of South African table wine, but it is the small, frequently ethnic (Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, Asian) but also shops that offer you real choice, things like various cuts of lamb and home-made merguez sausages, fish heads for soup, fresh oysters, baby artichokes, salt cod, Iraqi flat-bread, dark-green North African olive oil, boxes of Algerian dates, etc etc etc., as well as contributing to the vibrancy of street life. And It is not like the Turkish fruit & vegetable shop five minutes from here imports every box of Spanish tangerines itself; those guys go to the central wholesale market a couple kms away every morning to load up, so the system is not without some efficiencies of scale and distribution. Would replacing this fine-grained network with a few, widely dispersed big-box stores increase be more efficient in some ways? Perhaps, but requiring people to have an auto to shop is highly inefficient in other ways, if only in terms of the amount of physical space required for parking at both ends of the trajectory. I know Americans who drive five miles across town in their SUV once a week to stock up at the Costco located in some industrial zone. That's efficient?
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Colin Brace
Amsterdam