> or into the first floor of your apartment complex.
I wouldn't trust a cafe built into an apartment complex. I'd expect it to be low-quality, over-priced food placed specifically to try and make a quick buck off people who don't know any better or who physically can't get somewhere better.
You're right that it goes beyond car culture (and zoning laws are part of car culture), but I think it also goes beyond zoning laws. A lack of a social contract between people (individually) and businesses these days is probably involved, too. All these things are interrelated.
You're "literally surrounded" by cafes built into the first floor of your apartment complex? Because that's what I was very clearly talking about. Not shops within walking distance.
(I didn't ask and don't care if you think your cheap meal's "very delicious," by the way. That's not the main indicator of quality. Many Americans would call a Big Mac "very delicious.")
Where do you live that this is so bizarre? Multi story buildings with retail space on the bottom and residential space at the top are very common in cities.
> I didn't ask and don't care if you think your cheap meal's "very delicious," by the way. That's not the main indicator of quality. Many Americans would call a Big Mac "very delicious."
What’s the point of this? This is just needlessly rude.
There's a limit to the convenience factor. Fast food used to be cheap because it was faster than real food. Now it's expensive, and less real than it was to start with. A hip no-name cafe owned by a huge conglomerate charging $17 for a microwaved sandwich or something is objectively a bad deal.
Ensuring you never have to leave the comfort of your apartment complex is also of questionable relevance to solving loneliness/getting people to meet each other.
> -t. not an Absurdist, but sometimes I use the tools.
Did you accidentally paste part of a different comment or something?
Why is that odd? Lots of apartment buildings in big cities have the first floor (or 2) for retail. Some apartments / condos have a whole mall downstairs.
I've lived in places that had restaurants on the ground floor of the building and they were the same prices as anywhere else. I'm actually surprised you find this unrealistic since it's so common in Australian cities. It's pretty much standard to have retail on ground and apartments above.
This is common in American cities, too. And European cities I’ve visited. And probably most cities that I haven’t visited.
When I visited Tokyo one really jarring thing was to realize that restaurants and cafes and such were often on the 2nd or 3rd floor. It’s so dense and so high-rise, in some areas at least, that these “ground floor” shops are also pushed upwards and inhabit the bottom 2-3 floors instead of just the ground floor.
I wouldn't trust a cafe built into an apartment complex. I'd expect it to be low-quality, over-priced food placed specifically to try and make a quick buck off people who don't know any better or who physically can't get somewhere better.
You're right that it goes beyond car culture (and zoning laws are part of car culture), but I think it also goes beyond zoning laws. A lack of a social contract between people (individually) and businesses these days is probably involved, too. All these things are interrelated.