What's your city's Portland Ratio?

"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78) 10/23/2019 at 16:17 • Filed to: None

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Random thought: How many Whole Foods do you have vs how many Subaru dealers? It’s meaningless, but still interesting. Birmingham’s Portland Ratio is now stabilized at 1.0 (2:2) since our second Subie dealer opened . All is in balance!

Bigger thought: We’ve been considering relocating over the past year, and some of the things I look for as a proxy for affluence, convenience, and/or general infrastructure are the following retailers...even if I don’t shop at them much. So far it’s been pretty reliable to help get a feel for somewhere you haven’t been before.

1. Grocery stores: Publix, Walmart Neighborhood Market*, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Fresh Market, Earth Fare. Maybe Trader Joe’s.

2. General Retail: Costco (I hate them, but again it’s a proxy), REI, Lowe’s/HD, Homegoods, and TJ Maxx. At least one department store that isn’t Sears, JCP or Macy’s.

3. Car dealers: Mercedes, Audi, Lexus; but at least 1-2 VW and Honda shops , too, just to demonstrate some balance.

*Neighborhood Market only ...Supercenters are often the opposite result.

Spanfeller is a twat > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:36

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we have one subaru dealer to five high end supermarkets (City Market)

promoted by the color red > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:40

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NaN because we have neither a Subaru dealer nor a Whole Foods. Welcome to life in the middle of nowhere.

AestheticsInMotion > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:41

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I feel like Macy’s is immeasurably far ahead of TJ Maxx on the fanciness scale, no?

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:46

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We have an organic whole foods shop that opens a few days a week but the nearest Subaru dealer is the best part of 2 hours away to either the north east or south.

We have two supermarkets, two pubs, four  cafes, two takeaways, a Subway and a Toyota dealer. 

lone_liberal > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:48

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No Whole Foods (but a couple of Trader Joe’ s) but 3 Subaru dealers in the area, though you have to cross a state line to get to the third. We do have Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, VW, BMW and Honda dealers but nothing more exotic than Porsche so if you need your Lambo serviced you’re going to have to arrange something with the Seattle dealership.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:48

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Vancouver, Wa

1 Whole foods

1 Subaru dealership

1 Portland next door.

Portland ratio: 1:1:1

Ash78, voting early and often > AestheticsInMotion 10/23/2019 at 16:49

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In terms of selection, sure! But a Macy’s in a town is a coin toss about whether that’s even a good area. Could be shut down tomorrow. OTOH, TJX is one of the most successful retailers in the US, and they’re very selective about locations. I’ve never seen one open and then shut down due to failing business . That’s what I’m driving at.

Ash78, voting early and often > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 10/23/2019 at 16:50

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You broke all the maths.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:53

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Houston - 12 Whole Foods : 6 Subaru Dealerships

Baton Rouge - 1 Whole Foods : 1 Subaru Dealership

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:56

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Down the street from me within one block of each other there are definitely a Sprouts, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and a Porsche dealer. And within a mile theres a Lambo dealer along with all of the other fancy dealers. But with that comes the area being expensive and petty crime being rather high. For perspective, my rent of $1860 (water, sewage, trash, and parking brings that to around $2k) for a 1BR 700sqft apartment is cheap for the area and a “cheap” house would sell for around $800k if you can find a fixer-upper or a condo.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 16:59

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2:1 in Tulsa

Add Starbucks (or other expensive coffee shops) to your metric.

T5Killer > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:00

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Albuquerque NM,

2 Whole Foods

2 Subaru Dealerships

1 Portland high altitude edition next door (Santa Fe)

Portland ratio: 2 :2 :1

AestheticsInMotion > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:00

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Huh. I had no idea about their success. Honestly I would have assumed they were dying out like sears ...

There's a Walmart Neighborhood somewhat near me, and the first time I went in I assumed it was your typical Walmart. I was really disappointed to not see any of the craziness I'd heard so much about

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:04

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You... You hate Costco? I save like 700 a year on coffee creamer alone. Hot dog and a pop for $1.50. Return policy is “Yeah, bring it back whenever” AND the c heapest gas in the area.  

How can ya hate that?

Yeah, the parking lot and lines  can be a gong show, but I love me some Costco.

diplodicus forgot his password > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:11

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412GTI > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:28

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Pittsburgh, Pa.

5 Subaru dealers (7 if we go further out) 

3 Whole Foods

1 REI if we really want to pretend to be outdoorsy. 

benjrblant > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:31

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11 whole foods plus the allegro roasting plant to (i think) 6 subaru dealers, and 4 REI’s. Pretty impressive for a city that’s not even 750k people.

benjrblant > TheRealBicycleBuck 10/23/2019 at 17:35

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considering the houston metro area is something like 7 million people, that’s not very many whole foodsesess.

LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:35

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So is the city better/worse or more Portland-like if it has more Subaru dealers or more Whole Foods?

Or is it simply representative of a balance? Because maybe a city is more Portland than Portland if it has 5 of each, but the ratio is still the same as 2 of each.

Charlotte the count is 2 Subaru dealers, 3 Whole Foods. But there are 3 more Subaru dealers in the metro area. One more Whole Foods.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 17:46

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Wholefoods, trader joes etc..: 0

Super One Foods: 2

Subaru dealer: 1

Chevy Dealer: 2

FCA Dealer: 1

Ford Dealer, used to be 2 now: 1

Bicycle shops: 4

Ski shops: 5

REI: 1

Costco/HD/Lowes/Hobyloby/Cabellas: 1

Tourist trap restaurants : like 12 or something

wafflesnfalafel > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 18:05

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wait, but how does Trader Joe’s fit into that - needs it’s own separate factor

TheRealBicycleBuck > benjrblant 10/23/2019 at 18:16

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Well, there are 17 Walmart Supercenters and another 12 Walmart Neighborhood markets to pick up the slack. :)

Whole Foods also has to compete with H.E.B (19 of them), Trader Joe’s (5 of them), Phoenicia (3 of them), and several other mid-range grocers in the area.

PowderHound > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 19:55

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5 grocery stores (1 is Whole Foods) 6 if you count  Walmart. No Subaru dealers. We actually only have 1 ford dealer and no other car dealers. 

ranwhenparked > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 20:03

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You definitely don’t want my shithole town. I just live here because real estate is cheap and taxes are low, and because I can drive to many better places in 30-60 minutes.

1. 2 Food Lions, 2 Redner’s, 1 Safeway, 1 Aldi, 1 Save-A-Lot, 0 Whole Foods, 0 Trader Joe’s, 0 Fresh Market. Getting a second Aldi and a Lidl, though. Acme shut down last year.

2. Pennys, Macy’s Boscov’s, Target, Kohl’s,  Wal-Mart Supercenter (2), Sam’s Club, Big Lots, Burlington. Sears closed last year.

3. Volkswagen, Subaru, and Honda

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > AestheticsInMotion 10/23/2019 at 20:04

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Out here, Macy’s is definitely a sign of a better part of town. Kohl’s is chaotic-neutral, though in places further inland it has a clear negative connotation .

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 10/23/2019 at 20:41

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Vancouver is where the moderate democrats live.

just-a-scratch > Ash78, voting early and often 10/23/2019 at 22:44

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Seattle:

1 no wally world, but idk how many trader Joe’s and while foods locations. Lots of neighborhood farmer’s markets, and PCC for the co op flavor.

2 REI founded and headquartered here, Costco founded nearby, all the others are present, though Macy’s is on the way out

3 All those brands are represented. Mo re Subaru than you might expect here too.

Portland is a mini Seattle, and because of the similarities and proximity the two are fierce rivals. 

DipodomysDeserti > Ash78, voting early and often 10/24/2019 at 02:02

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The proper way to calculate a Portland ratio is the number of kids digging out of the trash at Wholefoods compared to the number of people shopping at Wholefoods.

Alternatively, you can calculate the ratio of homeless pet dogs in the parking lot to the number of shoppers.

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 10/24/2019 at 05:22

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Dick Hannah Subaru can just drop the Hannah from their name already!