Hacker News Reader

Comment by neutronicus | Hacker News Reader

It already has!

Ethnic food has thoroughly suburbanized, as has shopping.

I suspect I can get a larger variety of ethnic food of very decent quality in 1 hour in NYC than in 99% of suburbs.

Shopping for large items, or large quantities, definitely tends to use suburban land because it's cheaper, and a shopping center uses a lot of it. The cost for the customers is the time to drive there.

I can't speak to NYC - best case it would take me 4 hours to get there (.5 to the airport, 1 hour security, 2 hours on the plane, .5 from ny airport to the city). Meanwhile I can get to nearly anywhere in my entire MSA in less than an hour, both city and suburbs (and even a few farms). Within that the majority of ethnic food is in suburbs, though the largest concentration is still downtown.

Well, NYC is NYC.

I live in Baltimore, and if you ask after Chinese, Korean, Indian, or Vietnamese, without specifying city limits, you will be directed to a place in the suburbs with a parking lot (I think this is essentially true of DC as well).

Same in Atlanta. Best ethnic food is in the suburbs.

If you think that culture is strictly a matter of consumption this is a reasonable clap back, but it belies its own shallow premise

What's ethnic food?

If you're in America, it's Italian/Greek/Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai/Japanese/Ethiopian/Moroccan/Brazilian/Indian food. Etc.

So basically any non-diner non-fastfood.

Well, there are some rural staples like BBQ, and Mexican to a degree.

But, yes. The sort of ... enduring narrative is that rural areas and suburbs have chain restaurants, diners, and fast food, because immigrants go to cities and open restaurants from their native cuisine, and that suburbanites think black pepper is spicy and sushi is gross.

In actuality I think immigrants are increasingly (a) enamored of the American big-car / big-house lifestyle (makes sense, they choose to come here) and (b) bought-in to the notion that cities are dangerous, with bad schools. So immigrants rent a place in a strip mall near the suburban school district some other immigrant said was good online and start restaurants there. Google maps exists, suburbanites think nothing of a 25 minute drive, so they ask around online after the best examples of a particular ethnic cuisine, and they drive there.

In Maryland, where I live, it's certainly true that the highly-regarded Chinese and Korean dining is in suburbs. Latin Americans, specifically Guatemalans and Salvadorans, are the only immigrant group moving in to Baltimore (where I live) with any sort of enthusiasm.

While it’s true that there is food and shopping in suburbs, I think it’s also true that suburbs are still food and culture deserts, since the food and other amenities is typically far away from most houses.

Not really. Get in a car and you can be at all. For many in the city walking it is about as long to get to those things - the distance is less, but the time is similar and time is what counts.(which isn't very many!) the city is the food desert - there are bars and restaurants, but zero grocery stories. If you want to cook a meal you have to get to the suburbs to buy the supplies.

i take it you are not from the old world? Only in north america will you find dense cities without small, normal grocery stores.

These are incredibly common in all of the old world.

True. One other people you find in cities in the old world is people who are not in that weird place between college and kids where they can afford to eat out all the time and alcohol hasn't started catching up to their health

Reply on news.ycombinator.com