Shared Article from Forbes

America's Ugly Strip Malls Were Caused By Government Regulation

Why concentrate all the fast food chains?

forbes.com

America’s Ugly Strip Malls Were Caused By Government Regulation

Scott Beyer, Forbes

There is a common architectural language that I've found while traveling America. . . . Major roadways turn into strip malls fronted with parking lots and endless stretches of chain retail. These strip-mall arterials exist nationwide . . . . The common wisdom is that they result from "the market," as monuments to American capitalism and consumerism. But that is a big fat myth—they have been forced into existence by government regulations.

Indeed, many of the regulations that prevent livelier downtown areas also harm the potential of low-density, outlying, suburban ones, by mandating that retail stay confined into this strip mall model. Below is a list of these regulations, which are enforced to various degrees across America, explaining the uniform look of our municipalities from coast to coast.

• Single Use Zoning . . .
• Minimum Parking Requirements . . .
• Setback Requirements . . .
• Density Limits . . .

Read more at Forbes

–Scott Beyer, America’s Ugly Strip Malls Were Caused By Government Regulation
Forbes (August 26, 2016)

See also

• GT 2011-04-28: Subsidized Order
• GT 2009-04-25: Three notes for the critics of the critics of apologists for Wal-Mart

I’ve been out and about the last few Sundays, so I’ve been recreant to my duties on this blog. If it’s any excuse, this is where we were a couple of Sundays ago:^[1]

But what about you, gentle reader? What have you been up to lately? What have you been working on? Got anything big coming up? Anything you've written lately? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

Don't hold back. Let's get Shameless again.

1. ^[1]Hot Springs, North Carolina. We went camping in the Smokies for our anniversary that weekend; most of the time was spent hiking and staying in a tent around Cades Cove, Tenn., but on the way back we stopped off to stay at a Bed & Breakfast and see Hot Springs, the town where my grandmother grew up and went to school.↩

What I’ve been reading today: Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China

It’s a beautiful May day in the bright, sunny South. And it’s been a spell but I’ve been trying to keep things a bit more active once again here at the Rad Geek People’s Daily, and I feel like the time is right for a return to Shamelessness.

So, gentle reader, what have you been up to lately? What have you been working on? Got anything big coming up? Anything you’ve written lately? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

Don’t hold back. Let’s get Shameless again.