Talkin’ About Toronto
As a retail-starved Columbusite, I became inspired by a recent trip to Toronto. Toronto has thousands of beautiful, independent, neighborhood retail stores. Seemingly, every other block has a walk-in green grocer, a bakery, a full-service pharmacy, and other retail services. (I did spot one big box store on the outskirts of town). How can a city support so many small retail stores? Why do residents spend more money on the same products walking to these stores instead of driving to big box stores?
Turns out, many people who live in Toronto do not own a car, or own one vehicle instead of two or three vehicles. Instead of spending $400, $600 or more a month per vehicle on car payments, insurance, gasoline, and parking, they spend $100 or $200 per month on transit, car rentals and taxi cabs.
The money saved makes the relatively high prices at neighborhood stores a bargain, because their use is part of an inexpensive lifestyle choice.
My trip to Toronto makes me wonder how many neighborhoods in Central Ohio could support Toronto-style retail strips.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
At this moment, none to two (Short North and Westerville, maybe). As oil runs out, though, there is hope. It’s about the entitlement attitude we find ourselves in regarding cars/SUVs/trucks. For so long our culture here in Ohio (supported by marketers and the big box stores) has been about more and bigger that we internally value ourselves by our transportation, and have even fallen into the entitlement mindset that says we deserve two+ SUVs regardless of anything else. We have seen a minute shift away from that in the past few months as that attitude hit us in the wallet, but it will be interesting to see if we continue to conserve and downsize since fuel prices have gone down. Change isn’t easy, and generally has to be by the choice of the individual to be successful. I’d love to see neighorhoods again, with shopping within walking distance, but I think we may take more convincing by a tightening economy and less access to fossil fuels.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Toronto has a great subway… It made me jealous.
Columbus is built for driving and parking, not for riding on transit. We have enough free or inexpensive parking areas, even downtown. Other cities fill those areas up.
In Clintonville, there are small shops, but I’d still drive to them in my car.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Downtown will continue to slowly fill back in. Those parking lots are disappearing pretty quickly as we speak with large infill projects like Neighborhood Launch, Huntington Park, the new Courthouse building, and the Lifestyle Communities project in Riversouth. Analysts always say “retail follows rooftops” and as Columbus continues to grow denser, those types of shops will follow. I’m already seeing it a bit on the Near East Side with several new developments along Long Street (two new coffeshops that serve food items, a new bookstore, and a new drycleaners).
September 9th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Many many people in Toronto use bicycles to get around their neighborhoods. I was shocked to see how common bicycles are as a regular means of transportation. Columbus, take note.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Toronto has a City Government that is responsive to the people. They are not the negative, vindictive nasty bunch like we have. Their Mayor spends time administering, rather than on Campaign Fund Contributions. The police are polite and most do not carry guns.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Oh, and compare the public transit in Toronto to COTA–