I wonder what all the factors are that contribute to the increase in small businesses. I would like to see an increase in these types of retail businesses and restaurants. Kyoto, and to a lesser proportional degree Suzhou, have much more tourism than Seattle has. Both cities experience more foot traffic. Both cities are much older. I wonder if there are any differences on the retail market, business capital market, or legal regulations that encourage empty retail spots to be quickly filled in Kyoto and Suzhou. I wonder if Asian retailers feel strong competition from online orders. The Seattle housing market, either with market forces or legal regulation, have more complete kitchens than the Kyoto/Suzhou housing market. I wonder what effect this has on the restaurant market.
> On a related note, I'd love to see more restaurants that fit only 5 or 6 people in them, with just a chef running the whole show. Is it less efficient? Maybe, but the food is better.
Food trucks are a very close approximate to this type of restaurant.
The quality is a world of difference though.
Those tiny restaurants in other countries have real chefs with full, if small, kitchens, cooking sit down meals.
Best bowl of ramen I had in Japan was a single chef establishment, he was in a U-shaped open kitchen and guests sat around him.
> I wonder if there are any differences on the retail market, business capital market, or legal regulations that encourage empty retail spots to be quickly filled in Kyoto and Suzhou.
I think the very existence of small retail spots helps!
> and to a lesser proportional degree Suzhou, have much more tourism than Seattle has.
In 2017 Seattle had 39.9 million tourists (https://www.visitseattle.org/press/press-releases/seattle-se...), in 2013 Suzhou had 1.7 million (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/jiangsu/suzhou/travel/2013-09...)
FWIW, if anyone reading this is wondering where to go next, I'd recommend Suzhou! (or visit Seattle in late spring, Suzhou in early autumn!)
Every year at PAX West I am saddened by the lack of good food around DT Seattle for people to eat. Granted downtown is largely a business district, but I bet Subway gets the majority of PAX West food sales!
The Suzhou metro region in China has ~3x the population of the Seattle metro, but way, way, more than 3x the retail.
Kyoto is the same way, comparable to the Seattle Metro, way more retail.
It may also be that America tends towards larger retail outlets, we have a lack of high quality smaller restaurants, and the % of boutiques to larger stores (Macy's, etc) here seems different than in other countries.
For that matter, it was interesting to me that many of the large department stores in Japan are made up of what we'd think of as smaller boutique retailers who just so happen to be located right next to each other. It is a very different way to shop, in an American department store, the store runs everything and may have different brands broken out into sections. In a fair number of Japanese department stores, each brand seemed to be an independent retailer!
(This was super cool for variety and price points.)
I noticed something similar in China as well, not quite in the same way, and large name brand owned stores seemed much more popular there, but there were plenty of malls that consisted of tiny local stores all lined up next to each other.
I've also noticed that the minimum sqft for the newer mixed use buildings seems to be rather large. Compare the newer buildings to what you find in lower Queen Ann, where there are more tiny stores sitting around, same thing around Fremont.
On a related note, I'd love to see more restaurants that fit only 5 or 6 people in them, with just a chef running the whole show. Is it less efficient? Maybe, but the food is better.
If you want something in that vein, Max's World Cafe in DT Issaquah is tiny, and the chef, Edna, is incredible and friendly. I could do with 10x restaurants of that size! Modern construction just isn't setup to pop out a bunch of 150 sqft restaurants in a block though.