Contrary to the rhetoric of bored cosmopolites, most cities don’t exist primarily to please tourists. The children toddling through the Chandler mall hugging their soft Build-A-Bear animals are no less delighted because kids can also build a bear in Memphis or St. Louis. For them, this isn’t tourism; it’s life—the experiences that create the memories from which the meaning of a place arises over time. Among Chandler’s most charming sights are the business-casual dads joining their wives and kids for lunch in the mall food court. The food isn’t the point, let alone whether it’s from Subway or Dairy Queen. The restaurants merely provide the props and setting for the family time.

In Praise of Chain Stores, in this month’s Atlantic. The whole time reading it, I was thinking “this is exactly how I feel around people in Ann Arbor,” and then I get to the last paragraph:

In the name of urbanism, officials and activists in cities like Ann Arbor and Fort Collins, Colorado, are driving business to the suburbs. “If people like shopping at the Banana Republic or the Gap, if that’s your market—or Payless Shoes—why not?” says an exasperated Gibbs. “Why not sell the goods and services people want?”

via Arts and Letters Daily

Categories: America, Business and Economics, Community, Funny