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- Hacker News
- I want to see what the author considers a nice 7-11 for contrast, because it seems normal to me? Could be more walkable of course but I'm not sure that's on the REIT. They didn't lay out the roads or anything.
The wood paneling and nice front lights actually seem like an improvement over local 7-11s if anything.
by nemomarx - By that logic, I also own a microscopic share in all sorts of businesses, many of which have their own sadness or disinterest.
Is there anything that makes real-estate significantly different, beyond how the pathos can be more-easily photographed?
In other words, I expect the (legitimate) issues raised in the article have close analogues in legal/financial/incentive problems for other forms of investment.
> The shortcoming of such analyses is that they make it difficult to capture the value that would accrue to a project that created a neighborhood.
Sounds like an opportunity for experts in the field to develop and sell a good kind of analysis!
Though point-taken: It'd still be hard to attract cautious investors until something is perceived as "proven".
by Terr_ - No, this is just poor management. Japanese 7-11s are ran better because of better culture, products and management. It's not magic.by HawtAds
- In systems thinking, this would be called "intrinsic responsibility" (or lack thereof).
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12139955-intrinsic-responsi...> Intrinsic responsibility” means that the system is designed to send feedback about the consequences of decision making directly and quickly and compellingly to the decision makers. Because the pilot of a plane rides in the front of the plane, that pilot is intrinsically responsible. He or she will experience directly the consequences of his or her decisions.by Ozzie_osman - The article spends a lot of time describing problems that I would see as a result of car centricity and land use patterns, but it just fails to make a point on why it’s a problem caused by REITs.
You can easily go to NYC and find entire neighborhoods owned by large absentee landlords and yet are still walkable and desirable to live in. Yes perhaps regulations and tax laws favor large firms, but in the end zoning laws can easily require those large firms to build desirable neighborhoods.
by kccqzy - This was my home gas station for 4 years so I may be biased, but it is fine. Symptomatic of a deeper car-centric problem, sure.by sodality2
- I think part of the reason the US doesn't feel like the US anymore is that ownership of properties is no longer Bob who dreamed of some day opening a Pizza shop on Main st. It's all corporate now, all the way down.
- In the past 7-Eleven was unique in the franchise world where you could make a comfortable living owning a single store and that was the major ownership model. McDonalds and other options at the time really depended on a multi-store ownership model. Corporate 7-Eleven (Southland Corp technically) moved away from this single store model in the mid to late 90's, instead preferring single, larger corporations in a region, owning 10+ stores over a single store owner. They made this happen over a 20 year span by changing the contracts franchisees sign and must to re-sign every x years. Every contract renewal drastically reduced the single store income and made it much harder for single store owners to make a living. Corporate also started preferring to give new stores to existing, large scale franchises over new store owners which changes the initial capital needed for a store by over 10x as with an existing store you will have to pay the rights from the previous franchisee instead of just the corporate.
My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles all own or have owned 7-Eleven stores and have since the 80's. I've worked there, been to their conferences, and still get to hear about them at all family gatherings :)
by bradly