Population and Housing

[danbrotherston]

It would be interesting to see how commercial develop fits into new communities.  From what I have seen (and admittedly, I have not toured many developments), most of the commercial space that is part of the "live-work" units that encourage ground floor commercial uses trend towards medical, particularly counselling, or investment brokers.  Other ground floor units without connecting residential tends to be either small scale restaurants or convenience-level stores. How long does it take for community to be in place before other types of commercial moves in? I'm thinking of things like hardware stores, book stores or what might typically have been in a "small-town, walkable" main street.  Without a complete commercial profile, residents will still need to travel elsewhere for those needs, either by walking, biking, transit or driving.

I think things like hardware stores will struggle to ever regain the main street experience. A few reasons, they are primarily destinations, not browsable, so they don't benefit from main street as some businesses do. They are a more occasional shopping destination for most people...they go when they need to do work. They are the kind of place that you often will more often need a vehicle to transport items from anyway.

For other retail, electronics stores, various clothing, etc. I think it is still a very hard sell. The main advantage businesses see of those locations is the proximity of people. So businesses which benefit most from that are the ones that will locate there--convenience stores, restaurants, etc. I think it won't make economic sense for a more "complete" commercial profile to exist until we have regulations which address the externalities to other businesses. I.e., an electronics retailer will always prefer to locate in a big box development because they will always benefit from scale and parking etc. because they don't have to pay for the roads or environmental damage or sit in traffic etc.