> 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?
You have a valid point here. I did not think clearly I was writing my response to Doug as I was in a hurry to catch a bus. What I wanted to say was that WSJ, the paper of the property-owning class, obviously came strongly against any encroachment of the property right, and they did that by selecting examples that evoke US popular icons, familiy owned business, churches, etc. vs. megacorps and city hall - bascially the small guy vs. big organization imagery that evokes strong emotions here. Doug is generally quite keen to catch this kind of bullshit when it comes to argument against media ownership, but this evidently slipped past him.
I was also objecting to what seems like visceral opposition to urban renewal projects and urbanization in general that can be observed in the US, including parts of the left.
As far as your argument of a network of smaller outlets vs big box stores is concerned - it is right on the target. You are absolutely right that most viable cities (W Europe and also NYC) have a network of such small retail outlets, whereas cities that are not viable (like Baltimore) generally lack it. What I really wanted to argue is for the urban development that makes the US cities look more like European cities - which seems to generate much opposition in the populist, small-is-beautiful, and NIMBY circles here.
Wojtek