Cox Crow

Can You Plan a Village?

We've been wandering around Dutchess County looking for another house, preferably not too far from work, yet close to Deena's family. Some of the houses we've seen have been in a residential cluster development in Beekman, Dalton Farm. Just this Sunday I ran across an advertisement in the paper for a new development by WCI Spectrum in East Fishkill, Four Corners. The picture in the advertisement looked like these from John Massengale's, while the development will probably be like this one in Southbury, Connecticut.

I wonder, what does it take to incorporate a village instead of a community association?

11:57:38 PM # Google It!
categories: Place

The Government Only Does What the People Want, Right?

Jacob Levy, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, ponders the question of why there's a dearth of retail outlets around the University of Chicago.

Honestly, what are they teaching in University of Chicago economics classes these days? I thought Chicago was supposed to produce libertarians who knew to look for government failure behind market strangeness. In short: it's the zoning. Want to know why there's no Gap on 55th Street? Click through to the searchable map. Pan up and down 55th Street, the barren wasteland that bisects Hyde Park. Do you see how much of it is zoned for commercial or business use?

10:02:56 PM # Google It!
categories: Place

No Seats Outside Dressing Rooms

The incentive to provide seats outside dressing rooms is not obvious, whereas the cost of providing them is.

Floor space has a known cost. Therefore, the retailer should maximize the amount of product per square foot, correct? Not exactly. The retailer needs to maximize the amount of product sold per square foot in order to maximize the profit per square foot.

One way to do this is to not install seating next to the dressing rooms. The customers of clothing stores are, more often than not, women. They may or may not shop alone. Those who tag along may not purchase goods. Not installing seating forces the companions to wander the store, and find another good to purchase.

But who are the companions? They are friends, who may make similar purchases; children, who are susceptible to impulse purchases; and spouses, who are disgruntled at having to wait, harried by the children's impulses, and anxious to leave. Without either a friend or a spouse to watch the children, the customer will be distracted by the children, thus aggravated, less likely to evaluate the good, and more prone to leave sooner. In leaving sooner the customer will make one of two decisions: buy less or buy more. If the customer buys more, they will return the goods later, unless it is inconvenient. Unless the companion is a friend with similiar tastes, less sales are probable, or returns will increase.

Therefore, a store which has a comfortable seating area outside the changing room should produce more sales per square foot, and, more importantly, profit.

8:35:29 PM # Google It!

Co-Dependent Personal Web Pages

At the last minute we were stymied in our attempt to disentangle the SNET personal web pages from their legacy dependents, by yet another legacy system which won't be replaced for another few months. Oh well.

On to the next one: Ameritech.

Now, I happen to know that there are some readers of this journal who happen to have Ameritech accounts, and who happen to not use what passes for personal web space with those accounts. Are there any of you who do? If so, or if you're just curious, now is the time to register your interest in this project.

Of course, you could always use that other personal web space.

4:48:32 PM # Google It!
categories: PWP