Quote:
Originally Posted by migol24
I think everyone is okay with having a decent balance between chains and local retail. What I'm saying is what can we do as a community and a city to influence the fabric of our city. I don't care who hates or doesn't hate Starbucks. As a barista I'm fully aware how Starbucks has influenced the coffee culture here in America. But that doesn't mean we should let it open up shop whenever where ever. We should push for a healthy balance between local stores and chains, is my basic argument. And I merely used Starbucks as a prime example of how not keeping tabs on chains can go wrong. For all that's being discussed about 7-11, Starbucks has at least five shops in the downtown area and its gonna continue if the city really doesn't do anything about it, even if with said laws 75% of stores do end up opening up.
In my fantasy, I'd like for the usual convenient stores like CVS, Walgreens, 711, etc to be conveniently located. I'd also wouldn't mind seeing a major grocery store like HEB, or Target. But foremost, I'd like the local shops to be the cornerstone of what makes downtown our own unique character.
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Nobody really lives on the Corner of Montgomery and California in the Financial District. To me, there are HUNDREDS of "downtowns" in San Francisco which compromise the lifeblood of very specific multinational ethnic groups from ALL OVER THE WORLD! SF has the largest Nepalese population in the US, and they have their own neighborhood in the Tender Knob. Almost every other nation in the world has a significant neighborhood somewhere in The City. In fact, there are hundreds of them, but you have not lived anywhere near the length of time that one has to live in San Francisco to have a fairly good knowledge of, or have been to many of them so that you can really have an unbiased opinion. I'm sure that you know the difference between a Honduran restaurant, an El Salvadoran Restaurant and a Mexican restaurant in the Mission, and that you have some idea about where in the Mission are the Honduran, the Nicaraguan, the El Salvadoran, the Mexican, etc. neighborhoods. You probably even know somewhat about the significance of different colors that they wear.
As far as Walgreen's, the one on 18th and Castro is stocked with more items than you will EVER see in any other Walgreen's. The Safeway on Market is large, well-stocked and has much cheaper prices than any HEB one could ever find in Texas. For those who want the Ultimate Safeway, and have the luxury of being able to afford the costs of having a vehicle in SF, there is the beautiful Safeway in Diamond Heights. But public transportation in San Francisco is more accessible at 3AM, with more routes that can actually get you to where you want to go than Austin has in the middle of the day! SO you can pretty well get to wherever you want to go ANYWHERE in the City within 30 minutes if you know all the bus, streetcar, cable car, Muni Underground and BART lines. Try driving AND finding a parking place in the same amount of time as you can on Public Transportation. And if you want to do some really heavy shopping, cab fares are VERY CHEAP and abundant in SF.
And the ethnic neighborhoods have an amazing array of shops where you can find just about anything that you could find anywhere in the world. Within a few years, you will probably find some of your favorite places in the City, but it really takes MANY YEARS to find and to get to know about most of them! And a lot of the best of them are way out in The Excelsior, The Crocker Amazon, The Mission Terrace, The Ingleside and the Oceanview going all the way up to the lower slopes of San Bruno Mountain.
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