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Lessons of Love, by Way of Economics

First, the good news. I bought the New York Times in the airport and found a great article by Ben Stein: Lessons of Love, by Way of Economics. You should read the whole article, but here are my favorite excerpts:

In general, and with rare exceptions, the returns in love situations are roughly proportional to the amount of time and devotion invested. The amount of love you get from an investment in love is correlated, if only roughly, to the amount of yourself you invest in the relationship. If you invest caring, patience and unselfishness, you get those things back. (This assumes, of course, that you are having a relationship with someone who loves you, and not a one-sided love affair with someone who isn’t interested.)

Long-term investment pays off. The impatient day player will fare poorly without inside information or market-controlling power. He or she will have a few good days but years of agony in the world of love. To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.

The Revolt at Terminal B -or- Delta Sucks

I had a two-hour layover in Atlanta on my way to Phoenix. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30 PM, and since the thunderstorms had long since blown over, I was confident we would leave on time. I had no idea how many things would go wrong over the next 24 hours.

Since reading about boring travel drama is, well, boring, I’ll get to the point: they delayed our flight every half hour until we were finally able to board four hours later. I was snuggled into my seat preparing to sleep on the long flight to the west coast when the captain came on the speaker: “I’m sorry folks. This flight has been canceled. We’ve tried hard to get a flight attendant, but we are one short and we can’t make the flight. But there will be a gate agent waiting for you outside to help you rebook your ticket.” All 150 people stomped out of the plane and reluctantly formed a line. It was already 11:00 pm.

I got on the phone and called Delta because I figured it would be quicker. After a quick conversation with the man on the phone, he put me on hold. An hour and nineteen minutes later, I hung up the phone because my face was getting hot and I was losing my mind. During that time, only three people had actually gone up to the counter and walked away with a ticket. That’s 30 minutes per person. At that rate, it would take 75 hours to rebook everyone in line. That is almost three days.

Things got more miserable when I learned from the three people who actually got their ticket that they would not leave Atlanta until after 3pm the next day and that Delta couldn’t find any more hotel rooms. (Are you serious? They could only find three hotel rooms in the city of Atlanta?) Lets say we got lucky and were magically issued tickets for the next day. What were we supposed to do for the next 15 hours?

Even with this bad news, I felt fortunate because from what I could see, our line was the shortest line in the whole terminal. There were at least 300 people in the line three gates down. The place was starting to look more like a refugee camp. People were getting angry, yelling and slamming their fists on the counter. Throwin stuff.

At this point I realized something had to change. These things turn nasty real fast. I cornered a Delta employee and tried to explain the situation:

“I understand it’s been a difficult weekend for you all. The thunderstorms have caused a lot of difficulties that are beyond your control. I have no doubt that everyone here is working hard. But I don’t think your supervisors understand how bad the situation has become. We’ve been told there are no hotel rooms and no cars to rent. But there are elderly people here and mothers with small babies. None of us are able to get our luggage. All the restaurants and stores are closed and there is nothing to eat. I think if your supervisors understood how hostile it’s become here, they would send more employees to help.”

She gave me a blank stare and then barked at me: “Look around, you’re not the only one who’s upset.” Apparently something was lost in translation. I tried with two more employees. Nothing.

I called Stephen and told him there was about to be a riot if something didn’t change. I told him to call the local news and explain our story. He called three stations, and each said they already had people at the airport. I’m sure if I walked past security and to the front of the airport, I would’ve been on the news to explain the chaos on the other side. But selfishly, I wanted to get my ticket and get back to Candyce.

I ditched my place in the front half of the line after I got word that another line was moving faster on the far end of the airport. Really, what did I have to lose? There was no way I’d get a ticket if I stayed there.

Indeed, the other line was moving faster. I was the last person in my line to get a confirmed seat on a flight the next day at 6:30 PM, for a grand 24-hour delay. My celebration was short lived because once I had a boarding pass in my hand, they closed all lines and the employees went home.

There were no airline officials left in the terminal except two police officers sent in to keep order. Six hours before, we were dignified business travelers. Now we were treated like hoodlums. It was humiliating.

Survivorman

I rode the escalator down to the airport train with hopes of finding a less populous terminal to sleep in. I was too tired to walk. I just stood there, slowly descending down the stainless steel tunnel. Once at the bottom, I was alone at the airport train station. On the airport speakers played “Take My Breath Away” from the movie Top Gun. The train never came. I walked to Terminal C.

It’s important in situations like that to keep things normal. Try to make yourself at home. I walked into the bathroom to wash my face and wipe down my teeth with a paper towel. I looked at my face in the mirror and noticed the man next to me with a disgusting wound on his forearm. He dipped his soiled bandages into soapy water, then ringing it out as well as he could with the injury. My heart broke for this guy. “It looks like you’ve had a bad day. Can I help you with that?”

He explained that he was a welder by profession, and he had a chunk of metal removed from his arm earlier that day. His clean bandages and medicine were in his luggage which was nowhere to be found. He figured he would be just fine. He thanked me for the concern and he told me goodnight.

If you watch Survivorman, you know that it is impossible to sleep in the wilderness if you do not feel secure. It’s easier to sleep at the base of a tree than it is to sleep twenty feet away because your back is protected. After trying to sleep on a couple benches, I applied my survival knowledge and snuggled into a corner next to a the ticket counter. I was out in five minutes.

I woke up twice in the morning. The morning sun burned through the windows and lit up silhouettes of busy travelers walking confidently to catch flights. These were obviously new people. Each time I looked around and found new people asleep on the benches around me. My back hurt.

Into the City

I got up at 8 am road Marta into the city. I was starting to get depressed in the cage of the airport. Stephen picked me up at the station and few minutes later we were having breakfast at the Riah’s Bluebird, a cozy cafe off of Memorial Drive. I figured it was a new day and I needed to be alert, so I chugged a few cups of coffee after breakfast while we talked about the night before.

What I came to is this: that was just a really poorly managed situation. These are the kind of situations an airline is supposed to anticipate in advance so that when they come, you don’t enrage your customers by stealing away their dignity. I imagine that our story will get to a senior at the airline and many people will be fired. What bothers me most is that the solution was not far away. Delta is one of the largest employers in the city of Atlanta; it would not have been hard to call a couple dozen employees at 9PM the night before when it became clear that the situation was already out of control. But they didn’t, and because of that, there was chaos.

I was done complaining and asked Stephen to drive me around East Atlanta and Cabbagetown and show me what was new. I am in awe of how much those parts of town have cleaned up in the past ten years.

Back in 1998, I was a design intern at a web agency in a cool loft in between Little Five Points and Virginia Highlands. We were all hipsters who wanted to know about the next big thing online and around the city. I’ll never forget the day that James suggested we check out East Atlanta. (Isn’t that where people die?)

That night we went to an awesome pasta place and had a great time. We didn’t talk about it the next day. We never went back. None of us wanted to admit we were afraid of the hipster frontier.

Here we are, ten years later, and it’s become a great place to live, work, and play. Just look at the development called Glenwood Park just south of I-20:

Back in Phoenix

I got back into town yesterday. I was lucky to get on that flight because they put me on a plane that was supposed to take of today. (That would make a 48-hour delay with no hotel, no food voucher, no rental car.) I pleaded with the guy at the counter and he worked something out for me. Now I am back in my beautiful home with my beautiful wife. Soon we will have a baby. I’m probably not going to get on an airplane for the rest of this year.

I’m in the middle of remodeling my house. I feel like I owe it to the world to report on the untold subplots in the story of upgrading homes and lives. These are the deleted scenes from home remodeling shows. This is the truth:

• I don’t look cool. It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror. For most of my life I’ve prided myself in being a fashionable, well-dressed man. Man at his best. Not anymore! Since I’ll be sloshing around paint and wood stain, I wear my most unfashionable shorts or pants, the ones that I haven’t worn outside of the home in 5 years. I rip the sleeves off of my most faded or awkward shaped T-shirts. These are the staples of my remodeling wardrobe. If I saw some dude dressed like me in public, I’d pity him as a man painfully unaware of his appearance. I now understand why the professional painters who come into the coffee shop each morning wear respectable white pants and shorts. It gives dignity to the untidy trade. It keeps your spirits up.
• People ask me a lot of irritating questions. When your life is uneventful, you start to meddle in lives of people who have more drama. I know this because I’ll have ordinary months in life, I corner someone with more action get the scoop. Since all of my friends, neighbors, and co-workers know my house is under construction, I get pegged with about 10 questions a day. Every day. I might be done with my remodeling by now if I didn’t have to stop and answer questions about why I’m not done yet.
• I spend all my money at Lowes. If you were to make a highlight reel of the last six months of my life, you would see lots of boring footage of me looking for things on the isles of Lowes. Just me standing there silent for three minutes, scanning the wall for the right electrical outlet. Then you’d see more footage, except this time I’m swiping my credit card again and again and again. Here’s your warning: over the course of a house remodel, you’ll make 100s of trips to Lowes and spend a mind-blowing amount of money. It might make you feel better if you invest in stock of the closest hardware store before you begin remodeling.
• I won’t be around to enjoy it. Dad encouraged me early in the construction by saying, “When this is all done, you can enjoy it for years.” I wish! Although I enjoy working on my home, I’ve postponed the true pleasure of living in my home for at least another decade. I’m not settling in this house. So any work I do here is for someone else to enjoy. I’m a contractor hired by the future home owner. So if you don’t enjoy the trades of home remodeling, your only motivation will be financial gain. And life always manages to suck when you are chasing money.
• I feel like my life is spinning out of control. I cannot overstate this. The home is where you are sheltered from the dramas of the world throws at you. When your house is in disarray, it only adds the drama. If you live in the house you’re remodeling, you must have an endless source of mental and emotional fortitude. You have to get up in the morning and be okay with the fact that there is sawdust underneath your cereal bowl as your pour milk over your Cheerios.

I am lucky because I’m married to an awesome woman. We’re on the same team when it comes to overcoming the obstacles in life. If you and your spouse are in a rocky point in your relationship, fixing your home will break your relationship. Get your priorities straight and given your marriage an extreme makeover first.

7. Tempe Marketplace in Tempe, AZ
Cool Points: 3 out of 5
Online: http://www.tempemarketplace.com/

I’ve been looking forward to this development for a long time, and now that it is here, I am underwhelmed. What bothers me the most about this place is that it the big block retailers (in lighter blue along the bottom of the image) are separated by a massive parking lot from the more pedestrian-friendly shopping area (dark blue). When you visit Tempe Marketplace, you pretty much have to choose which place you’re going to shop. There’s no attempt to connect the two types of shopping. No crosswalks, no bridges, no nothing. Just a car-pedestrian incident waiting to happen.

Another problem with the big box retailers is that they punish the good vibes of Rio Salado Parkway. The drive from the nearby Mill Avenue shopping district on Rio Salado Parkway is a lot of fun. You get views of the Tempe Town Lake, “A” Mountain, the ASU Sun Devil Stadium, and the greens of Karsten Golf Course. The whole scenic drive turns bad once you cross McClintock and arrive at Tempe Marketplace. You’re now in a back alley.

On a visual note, I don’t think this place will weather well with time. Its full of visual excitement and hype at the moment, but this whole circus of color could get real tacky real fast.

What keeps me from giving this place a 1 or a 2 is that it is built on what used to be a toxic dump that existed beneath a patchwork of unkept businesses, junkyards, and other eyesores. If the developers didn’t come in and clean up the mess, who would have? Plus, I give extra points to developers who invest in infill projects. You don’t have to go to the far edges of town to build something new for the community.

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8. DC Ranch Market Street
Scottsdale, AZ
Cool Points: 5 out of 5
Online: http://www.beonmarketstreet.com/welcome/index.php, more on DC Ranch http://www.dcranch.com/

Although this is a significantly smaller project than the others that I’ve featured here, DC Ranch’s Market Street in North Scottsdale is brilliant. Without Market Street, the communities of Silverleaf and DC Ranch would feel like lifeless suburbs pressed against the base of a mountain.

The creative team behind Market Street incorporated every detail that makes a shopping area livable:

• Narrow streets paved with bricks
• Parks with benches, tables, and umbrellas
• String lights
• Statues and fountains
• Sidewalks with shade
• Street-side parking
• Regional architecture
• Unobtrusive signage
• Native plants
• Covered bridges
• Unique retailers

Not only is it a charming gateway for the homeowners in the McDowell Mountains, Marketstreet is a destination for anyone in the city looking for something creative to do with their afternoon. I know the last sentence sounded like I work for a marketing company, but sometimes the hype is the truth.

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9. Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga, California
Cool points: 5 out of 5
Online: http://www.victoriagardensie.com/Earlier this month I made a trip to Rancho Cucamonga in inland Southern California. A group of us had lunch at a restaurant in the Victoria Gardens, a shopping center designed to look and operate like a classic downtown: tidy storefronts with wide sidewalks lined with broad leaf tree and classic street lamps. Cafes and coffee shops were spaced strategically throughout the center to give shoppers a place to relax and enjoy people watching.

Notice the fountains, plants, lights, and harmonious storefronts.

If you take a close look at the image below you can see that North Main Street and South Main Street allow shoppers to cruise a little bit before they decide to shop.

How you park matters. I’m not promoting the idea that “you are what you drive”, but part of the fun of owning a stylish car is that people get to see you in it. It’s the same reason you like to be seen when you are wearing your best clothes. You feel good because you look your best. One of the biggest let-downs of owning my first new car after college was that nobody ever saw me in it. It was just me, one dude driving back and forth between my apartment and work. People like the occasion to show off their car. This is the primary reason why people use valet. The reason every other video on MTV features a rapper getting out of his car in front of a sidewalk full of people is because we all think it’s cool!

Practically speaking, street-side parking can’t accommodate the horde of people you want to attact to you shopping center. Victoria springs tucked the useful acreage on the outskirts of “downtown.”

When you put all of this together, Victoria Gardens had the same utility as a typical shopping mall, but without the icky feelings of commercial claustrophobia. Impressive!

4. Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix, AZ
Cool Points: 5 out of 5
Online: http://www.shopbiltmore.com/, for redelopment news http://www.shopbiltmore.com/redevelopment/shopbiltmore/default.asp

What you are looking at here is an outdoor mall is similar to The Block at Orange. The central corridor runs beneath the words “Biltmore Fashion Park” is a grassy stretch with sidewalks on either side. It’s fun to look into the stores when you are on the outside, but, it’s also pleasant to be inside the store and look out onto the grass. That’s a lot better than the same instance in a typical mall. There, you look out of the store and see herds of people, a kiosk selling cell phone accessories, and then another storefront with people looking back at you.

The Biltmore adds to the community around it.

I know “parking” is a dull subject, which is exactly why it’s important to address here. Parking is a necessary evil, so it’s important to do it right. The long white structure rectangle on the top is a multi-level parking structure. It’s hidden behind the shopping area, so you don’t have to look at it when you are driving by. The limited amount of parking in between Camelback Road and the shopping center makes The Biltmore more approachable. It’s hard to drive by without wanting to pull in and explore. Part of the traffic problem at that the intersection of 24th and Camelback is that people miss their green lights because they are too busy gawking at the action.

When you are driving on 24th Street (up or down) or on Camelback Road (left or right), The Biltmore is interesting to look at. You don’t even have to go inside and shopping to enjoy the place; this is in stark contrast to Gwinnett Place Mall. The store fronts open up to the grassy interior walkway, but they also open up to the street and the parking lot. It’s just a cool looking group of buildings.

Of all the shopping areas I’ve written about here, Biltmore Fashion Park is the most ambitious project because of it’s history. It was originally built in the early 1960s with a bit of a futuristic Jetson’s vibe to it.

It’s been under a massive facelift for the past year or so. It looks great. I am impressed that they dug a pedestrian walkway underneath Camelback Road to people staying at the hotels (below Camelback) to get easy access to the shopping and restaurants at The Biltmore. Or if you are spending a day shopping, you can unload your stuff in the car and then catch a movie at the Promenade on the south side of the street. I’ve read that they are building residential towers and more office spaces to create that synergy of live/work/play.

The blue border defines the Biltmore Fashion Park. The two towers on the left are expected to be completed in the future.

Since the company is owned by nearby Scottsdale Fashion Center, they’ve traded around some stores to create an ideal line-up to cater to specific audiences. From what I’m seeing, The Biltmore is aiming for the young and rich–two words that rarely fit together in reality. But the idea is appealing to everyone, so I imagine this place will get more popular by the day.

A bonus is that it’s not too far from the center of town: 8.1 miles from the heart of Phoenix.

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5. The Forum at Carlsbad in Carlsbad, California
Cool Points: 4 out of 5
Online: http://www.forumatcarlsbad.com.

I go to The Forum all the time when I’m in San Diego. It’s only a few minutes from the coast, so this area keeps the temperate climate year round. It’s sheltered on the left by a low mountain range (notice the trees). On the right is plenty of green to separate the whole center from the noisy commercial corridor: El Camino Real. These trees create a haven so that you don’t feel like your stuck in just another square in the endless grid of shopping in SoCal.

The main appeal to The Forum is the experience of driving into the center on the L-shaped main street. (Okay, maybe it’s a reverse L-shape.) Part of the fun of finding a parking space is gawking at the store fronts, watching people, and being seen in your car. You just feel cool. You can pull off to the right up to the sidewalk, or park in the center spaces. The larger parking lots are on the upper corners, then more on the south side.

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6. Kierland Commons in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona.
Cool Points: 3 out of 5
Links: http://www.kierlandcommons.com

I’ve only shopped here a couple times in the past few years, but Kierland Commons has all the attributes of a successful shopping center: mix of shops and restaurants, wide sidewalks, leafy trees, street lamps, park benches, street-side parking, and and inviting store displays.

It’s a good place to cruise.

Livin’ Large in No Sco (that’s North Scottsdale)

The overflow parking allows people to get in and out of the big stores, but the lots are divided up so that it doesn’t make you feel like you pulled up to Wal Mart.

I would give this place more cool points, but it’s just too far away from me to judge accurately. I have a prejudice against areas in my city that are too far from the center of the city: 20.8 miles.

Note: I never imagined that I would end up doing a 4-part series on shopping centers. This started as a simple journal about my frustration with the inhumanity of malls, and it developed into a thesis of sorts.

I spent most of my childhood in the 1980s, and nobody thought the idea of a suburb was a bad thing. Actually, everyone was a big fan. Almost every movie or TV show in that decade was obsessed with the the suburb and it’s grand landmark: The Mall. If you believed what you saw on TV (which I did), the mall was the center of every young person’s glorious social life. That’s where you hung out with friends, bought clothes, and met pretty girls. I knew the mall is where I was meant to be.

The only time I encountered this magical place was once a year when my family traveled two hours south to Gwinnett Place Mall, about 30 minutes north of Atlanta. My young teenage mind got dizzy off the sites and sounds of the place. I frolicked in every single acre of paradise.

By the time I was in college, I was too cool for the mall (just like every other kid raised in the 1980s who came of age in the 1990s.) But on the rare occasion that I absolutely had to go to the mall, I was got frustrated by the traffic, the game of finding a parking space, and the mindless consumerism. I preferred the quaint corners of the leafy streets of the city. Areas like Little Five Points, Virginia Highland, and Midtown. I couldn’t understand why anyone would shop anywhere else.

When I traveled, I was drawn to cities that had vibrant street life: New York, Chicago, Boston, and to a degree, New Orleans. I loved walking past the sidewalk cafes and exploring the stores. I discovered that one thing all these cities had in common was they were built before the invention of the automobile. With few exceptions, every other city in America boomed after people decided they’d rather drive somewhere than walk. This is why we have highways, exit ramps, large parking lots–all the familiar topography of a suburb.

I’m old enough to know that suburbs can be very good places to live, often with good schools, low crime rates, and more space for a grassy backyard. I’ve also witnessed the wide variety of “neighborhood shopping centers” that can make or break a neighborhood. I’ve experienced first hand that a shopping center can enhance the livability of the neighborhood, or exploit the residents for financial gain.

I should note that I’ve had no formal education on architecture, city planning, or commercial Real Estate development. Everything that I’ve written here is from the perspective of someone who loves city life, and wants people to be happy as they live out there days.

I’m so convicted about this that I did some work on Google maps people could get a bird’s eye view. Although the images might at first seem boring, they tell the unique story of the entire experience of shopping.

Here are 10 examples of how you make a large shopping center outside of downtown.

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1. Gwinnett Place Mall, Duluth, GA
Cool Factor: 0 out of 5
Online: http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=205Here you see a gazillion square feet of climate-controlled hell wrapped in acres of hot pavement. You can see a few rows of trees to break up the barron parking lot, but it’s hardly enough. Between your car and the mall’s doors is a brutal game of Man v. Machine where you try not to run over. Seriously, where are the sidewalks for the humans and the baby carriages?

The thought of driving the loop around the mall makes me want to vomit.

Although you can’t see it from the photo, the entryways into the mall are simple doors that allow you to pass from the parking lot into the store. There’s no “front porch” to make the transition more friendly. If it’s like any other mall built in the same era, there are no front display windows to draw you inside. From the outside, the mall is ugly and completely at odds with the natural surroundings. Essentially, it’s cubic structure of concrete built on top of acres of pavement. What could be more lifeless?

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2. The Block at Orange, Orange Country, California
Cool Factor: 2 out of 5
Online: http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=1236I first visited The Block in 2000 or 2001 when I spoke at an event at nearby high school. Then earlier this year I visited it a second time for Adam and Carolyna’s wedding rehearsal dinner at Dave and Busters.

The Block at Orange has a taste of the visual intensity of Times Square in NY.

You can see that it’s still a mall, except it’s divided up so you can walk outside.

It’s fun to walk in between the stores while enjoying the nice weather. There is plenty of tree shade too so I imagine it never gets too hot. The bad thing is that it still has a mall’s parking lot. The parking lot is an uninterrupted band of concrete that circles the shops. Once you get out of your car, there’s no excitement until you escape the parking lot. But still, everyone I know feels cooler at The Block than a typical mall.

But we’re not quite there.

 

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3. Clay Terrace in Carmel, IN
Cool Points: 4 out of 5
Online: http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=860Clay Terrace wasn’t finished when I drove through one early morning a few years ago, but it seemed like it was destined to become the charming downtown marketplace for the upscale town of Carmel.

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I found this picture online. I’m loving the classic architectural details of the subdued storefronts.

The central boulevard keeps drivers going slow with the two loop-around circles. (I don’t know what they are called.) And how much more fun is that? It’s what makes Columbus Circle in Manhattan such a whimsical place. It’s a Merry Go Round for adults.

There is plenty of street-side parking off of Clay Terrace Blvd, much like what you see off of downtown streets. People love to park in these spots. It’s a little silly to write a sentence like that, but there’s something about street-side parking that is more exciting than parking in the car pasture of a typical shopping mall.

A new downtown for Carmel, Indiana.

There are plenty of of spaces in the parking lots on the outskirts, but they are divided up to not seem so overwhelming. The stripes of white that extend out from Clay Terrace Boulevard are probably sidewalks, the ultimate courtesy to pedestrians. This shopping center must be a huge asset to the community. There is not a single Realtor in Carmel that doesn’t first drive down Clay Terrace Boulevard before showing an out-of-town buyer their next new house.