Post by Jack MayPost by Amy BlankenshipPost by George Conklinconsidered a good substitution for intelligence.
I think this is interesting. You attack people on the basis of my
speculation as to what their motivations might be. So you don't actually
know what their motivations are, you're just knee jerk attacking on the
basis of someone on a newsgroup's imputing them with motivations they may
or may not have. Yet you accuse these people, whom you don't know and
whose true motivations you have know way of knowing, of "blindly
following a trend."
I am commenting on what I see over and over again in local politics and my
experience working with politicians. What I keep seeing is a lack of
thinking or an understanding of how the world works. What is common is
people using common clichés trying to fit in with the crowd.
Again, I find your statements interesting. I would think that if they truly
wanted to fit in with the crowd, they would never consider placing any
limits on large retailers, since the vast majority of towns don't.
Post by Jack MayPolitics is largely trying to support what most people believe.
Typically that leads to approaches that don't do much and have a lot of
failures.
That's true. Most people believe that corporations have an innate right to
expand indefinitely and that every major highway intersection should have a
big box development. To *most* people, that's just the way of the world.
San Diego is trying something different.
Post by Jack MayWhen you deal with the "best and brightest" the problem solving approach
is radically different and usually far more successful. The best and
brightest don't want consensus, they want the best that is possible.
San Diego's problem solving approach is, in fact, radically different from
the "status quo." I would argue that they DO want the best that is
possible. Whether their approach achieves the best remains to be seen.
Certainly they did not acheive consensus with their own mayor.
Post by Jack MayPost by Amy BlankenshipHow is it ok for you, who have no facts on the situation, to attack them
for the flimsiest of reasons, yet when they make decisions they're
"blindly following a trend"? At the very least, we can assume they're
fairly well aware of the dynamics of their area--more so than we are.
They probably did also look into at least some of the facts of the
matter, but we can't really assume that they did OR THAT THEY DIDN'T. We
don't know.
We are mainly talking about average people when we talk about politics.
They have an understanding of local conditions, but they are typically not
going to be able to predict very well what will happen as the complex
consequences of their decision. I seen this happen many times in
political structures
This is not even conjecture. We know that the top 1% of people
accomplishes 5 times more than the average person and the bottom 20%
accomplishes almost nothing. By accomplishing, it is meant their rate of
producing success.
Politics and groups drive results toward the average. Organizations that
are searching for the individual with the best approaches tend to drive
solutions towards the best possible. That is probably the most
important thing I learned in my several years representing my company in
Silicon Valley transportation politics.
Just because you don't agree with their approach, which is *not* typical,
does not mean it won't be successful.
Post by Jack MayPost by Amy BlankenshipPost by George ConklinSan Francisco lost its port to Oakland for trying to save the dock
union. San Diego may lose their customers to further out town that do
have the big box stores. Your references about trying to save local
businesses is the usual incompetence that kill off both the small
businesses and the faster growing, cost competitive new businesses. A
lot of town have become boarded up such foolish approaches.
A lot of towns have been boarded up because of a lot of foolish
approaches and reasons that had nothing to do with anything officials
there did. It would be interesting to see what hard data leads you to
believe that limiting the size of stores that sell groceries has ever
killed any town. As far as I understand it, very few towns have tried it.
So I would imagine it's a bit premature for there to be studies on that.
People are mainly are looking for the best value for their money. Thus us
the most fundamental rule of all economics. Big box stores are
specifically developed to minimize total cost to maximize sales volume.
That is one assumption. I recently had a DIY project where I costed various
components at local businesses and big boxes alike in order to make sure I
was doing it for the lowest possible price. About half of the parts were
available lower at big box, and about half were available lower from a local
business. However, the total amount I spent at the local business was
higher, due to the mix of products involved.
One would also hope that a politician would have other considerations when
formulating policy, such as the long term economic and environmental health
of their jurisdictions. Some parts of their thought process might have
looked like this http://tinyurl.com/y2y5xf.
Post by Jack MaySo what happens when a town tries to save the expensive local small
merchant? The people drive to the large stores to get the best prices
and best selection. The small high cost stores sales still tend to drop
to low levels and large stores tend to dominate the dollar volume of
sales.
I suspect this is due as much to the larger advertising budgets of big
retailers as any other factor. I don't believe that big box truly does have
lower prices for the same quality product. I know that we wound up having
to buy two riding lawn mowers, because the low price choice we made the
first time around fell apart in less than a year-- and we spent about 3/4 of
its purchase price on parts trying to resuscitate it. The more expensive
model we bought from a local business has held up much better. So even if
prices were demonstrably lower across all big box chains
http://www.epinet.org/workingpapers/wp276.pdf than their local counterparts,
I don't even know if it is possible to study the impact of shoddy goods that
are priced lower on the people who buy them and factor them in.