General Suburban Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

I called them out on this once. I can understand asking high school children and vagrants to leave their bags, but if I'm going in wearing a suit and happen do have a backpack, I'm obviously not there to shop lift stuff. I get the need for a policy and to make it broad rather than selective, but you should be able to tell who is and who is not likely going to steal. A guy in a suit or a nurse on her lunch break in scrubs is probably not there to shoplift.


There are lots of shops, but far apart and usually very niche. Not everyone has the time to hop between stores. Meat (if I ate it) would be required to be purchased at Central or Marché Leo's. A good loaf of bread and there is no bakery still open? I guess I'm making a few blocks to Full Circle Foods (they sell nice breads, some from Golden Hearth). Oh but I need some chips and I'm in the mood for some plain Lay's. Better backtrack to Shoppers. Oh no I forgot the wine my wife wanted me to get, off to the LCBO now. No sorry, I don't carry change. Phew, all done. God damn the lock on my bike has been cut! Where is my bike! Ugh guess I'm walking to the LRT. It's standing room only as usual, 4 different people are playing music over a Bluetooth speaker and one guy keeps chewing on one of the holding straps.

It has nothing to do with being "car brained". Hypermarkets exist for a reason...convenience. I'm all for supporting small businesses but they alone cannot support high densities and needs of their populations. My home in Toronto is on Fort York Boulevard. There are 5 or 6 general grocery stores all within walking distance there, plus lots of specialty shops. My old place in Berlin was on Karl-Marx-Straße I don't know if you've ever been to Berlin, but its a dense city. I could always walk out my door and have a million large stores - Aldi, Netto, REWE, Penny, a million specialty shops or foreign grocery stores and of course, the Berlin staple, 24 hour spätis.

Shopping in Waterloo Region sucks, car or no car. And downtown needs a proper supermarket ASAP.

I moved to Kitchener 21 years ago primarily because it was easy to get around in by bicycle and transit compared to where I was last living in Richmond Hill. If I wanted good entertainment in Richmond Hill, I had to travel to a long way to downtown Toronto, whereas in Kitchener there was lots of live music only a short distance away. Transit has only improved in the Region. There are lots of supermarkets 2 or 3 km away, and it is easy to get to others farther away on my ebike. The only downside is that the affordable housing I moved here for has become no longer as affordable as it was.

I also take exception to the claim that megamarts are motivated by convenience. It might be a nice side effect, although folks here can and do argue about the convenience of massive parking lots and long checkout lines vs. just visiting more stores.

But that's all beside the point. The reason we have megamarts is because centralisation breeds efficiency. Shareholders make more money from larger stores with bakeries, delis, butchers all combined together. This is the way capitalist maximises profits. And yes, also lowers costs. But increasing efficiency and shareholder return is the only motivating factor here.