I really don't see why they feel the need to keep building useless things (longish)

[GoldFinch]

I live in a smallish area that is getting built up rather quickly...typically this might be a good thing if they didn't keep building useless crap. The major shopping district for this area is barely 2 miles from the major subdivisions in the area and it has the usual things like Publix, Walgreens, Target, and what have you. What I don't understand is why they are wasting money on building ANOTHER Publix not even two minutes from my house when there already is one that's only 5 minutes away! They did the same thing with Walgreens too! They built a new walgreens when the old one is again, only five minutes away! That's not even the worst part of it, they keep building these office condos that don't get used! They built this huge one last fall and it just NOW has two places opening up into it. They keep building these things but nobody buys them so they sit empty and useless! Then they built a Mellow Mushroom (which I'm not complaining about, the Mellow Mushroom rocks!) but then right across the street from it they're building the exact same kind of restaurant! Why?! :confused:

It'd be nice if they built actually built something the area doesn't have already like a bookstore. :cry: I am desperate for a bookstore since the only decent one isn't even in this county.

[Barefootgirl]

Wait, wait...they are building a WHAT? A Mellow Mushroom? What on earth is a Mellow Mushroom? It sounds very illegal :lol:

That is jsut the coolest name for a restaurant. What sort of food does it serve?

[GoldFinch]

Wait, wait...they are building a WHAT? A Mellow Mushroom? What on earth is a Mellow Mushroom? It sounds very illegal :lol:

That is jsut the coolest name for a restaurant. What sort of food does it serve?

:lol: Sorry, I was on a roll there with my rant that I didn't stop to think that maybe others would have no idea what the Mellow Mushroom was. It's a really cool pizzeria that sells the what is probably the best pizza I've ever eaten. The inside is done in sixities style with all these bright and funky murals on the walls. The staff is all really nice and laid back. It's a tad pricey but worth it to go there once in awhile.

[Seshat]

It's probably done on two theories:

1. If you build it, they will come.
IE: if the facilities and infrastructure is available, more houses will get built and customers will move in.

2. Growth is good.


I don't happen to believe in either, personally. I think new areas should have space earmarked for facilities and infrastructure, but it should be built a little bit ahead of when it's needed, not massively ahead and hugely redundant, like seems to be happening near you.

And I think there's nothing wrong with a steady-state economy, as long as it's managed properly. Growth isn't always and universally good.

[Soulstealer]

It's probably done on two theories:

1. If you build it, they will come.
IE: if the facilities and infrastructure is available, more houses will get built and customers will move in.

2. Growth is good.


There is something to those theories, however you're supposed to have demand first.

[GoldFinch]

It's probably done on two theories:

1. If you build it, they will come.
IE: if the facilities and infrastructure is available, more houses will get built and customers will move in.

2. Growth is good.


Trust me, this area has more houses/condos/apartments then it can hold and they keep building more of those too. It is kind of nice to know that some of the money is going towards more entertainment type things in the area like a bowling alley and movie theater. But then it's also kind of annoying because then it'll attract more idiots to the area and there are more then enough idiots already on this small spit of land.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Sounds like my area. We used to be surrounded by cornfields...now they're all filled with houses that seem to pop up overnight.

I call them houshrooms. :rolleyes:

[Boozy]

As far as the Publix and Walgreens go, what they're probably doing is a technique called market saturation. The idea is to make it so that no other grocery chain/drugstore chain will even think of building in that neighbourhood, because the market is already saturated. Then once everyone gets used to shopping at Publix and only Publix, they can close one of their stores and the existing customers will drive the extra five minutes down the street to the other one. At that point a competing chain could move in, but they'd be dealing with customers who have been used to shopping at Publix for several years and are resistant to change.

Starbucks made this technique famous.

[GoldFinch]

Well, the old Publix already does have competition in the form of Winn-Dixie right across the street. By far this the Publix does tons better then the Winn-Dixie by leaps and bounds and really, their only other competition is a Food Lion that's plenty far away from them. The old Walgreens also has it's only competition, CVS right across the street as well. Both of those stores are well off enough to where they don't need to monopolize the area. The idea of Publix doing this bothers me more then anything because the new is being built along the main drag and that's really going to screw traffic up along the road for the rest of us. I seriously hope they don't close the old one because then all the idiotic money flaunting snots that shop at the one will come to the new one.

[rdp78]

Well, there are at least 10 grocery stores within a 10-15 minute drive from where I live and four of them are Krogers. There are two Krogers that are at least an eighth of mile from on another on the same road however, the closer one doesn't have a salad bar* but the other does plus a Starbucks. Now how that happen was the further one used to be a Harris Teeter and then Krogers brought out Harris Teeter so I guess they decided not to close the other one.

Another Krogers (it used be a Harris Teeter also) has a Fresh Market in same shopping center but they are on different levels (the shopping center is on a hill) and there is a new Ukrop's down the side street from the shopping center. The other Krogers is part of a large shopping center with a mall and on one side and the small but shopping complex on the there as well as movie cinemia in the back of it, plus some other buildings. Across the side street is another shopping center with a Food Lion and there is another Food Lion down the freeway which runs next to the complex. There is also a locally own health food store that has organic produce and old Mick-or-Mack that are within a block of each (then again I don't think they have the same merchendise :lol:) that's a probably a mile from me (I've walked down there a couple times which takes about thirty, but I haven't been in the MorM store in a decade or so).

At the shopping center where the Krogers and Fresh Market is at there are several large empty spaces that haven't been occupied in awhile. Now one of those spaces used to a CVS but now they are in another building which is next to the shopping center. The thing is they just open up a new shopping center near where the two Krogers are at. There is also some empty spaces at that mall but there have always been empty spaces at that mall :lol: .

*Now it did have a salad bar a couple years ago but what happen was they decided to move to the other side of the shopping center and well, aparently they didn't have room for a salad bar in the new store

[Crosshair]

We have plenty of McMansions that nobody is buying where I live. They build them as cheaply as possible with little insulation. Considering it often gets -20 F here in the winter, that is a BIG deal. I hope the builders go broke for foisting such atrocities here.

[MMATM]

Sorry that this is completely OT, but Barefootgirl, I must say you are the first person outside of my close friends who knows about plushy syphilis.
To those of you who don't know about plushy syphilis, consider yourself lucky.


Back on topic:
Mellow Mushroom is in fact amazing, but the only one I've ever eaten in (or seen, for that matter) was in Georgia. In other words, several hundred miles away. :(

[GoldFinch]

We have plenty of McMansions that nobody is buying where I live. They build them as cheaply as possible with little insulation. Considering it often gets -20 F here in the winter, that is a BIG deal. I hope the builders go broke for foisting such atrocities here. See now, the problem here is that the spaces don't get used because the rent is way too high. In fact, that's the exact reason my former place of employment ended up closing.