So Matt Yglesias has a Slate post up today where he basically asks, “why don’t all the hairdressers move to Silicon Valley, where there’s a hugely well-off client base to compete for? His point is that the high cost of living in these areas prevents this.
But I’d go further. Unless your vocation is of the “guys who drive vans” variety (plumbing, electrical, etc), you need a storefront. And even cities that are good about allowing new residential construction aren’t always so with regards to commerce. The impetus is pretty simple. People want places that look “nice” and most people think reverse-frontage residential looks “nicer” than strip commercial, so the zoning allows essentially the bare minimum commerce for people to get their food, dry cleaning, work out, etc. This also has the side-effect of making commerce much more homogenous, since owners get to be choosier about their tenants, and owners tend to prefer established chains because there’s less financial risk involved. Basically, a lot of the complaints that suburbs are “all the same” has to do with suburbs being underdeveloped commercially.
If you want a place to be friendly to marginal service industries, you need to overbuild retail/office/light industrial spaces. Houston’s lack of zoning enables this to an extent rarely reached in other cities. Every midrise office you pass on a radial freeway with a gigantic SUITES FOR LEASE CALL 832-555-5555 banner on it is part of this, as is every partially vacant strip center. Cheap commercial rents enable a freer market in everything from christian bookstores to head shops.
keephoustonhouston
