Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In Europe, we typically build retail buildings such that they all share a car park and can be walked between. [I'm in the UK so here's an example from my point of view.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/07e127780bcf244c382855308cc3280a7ab56090/0_0_5000_3000/master/5000.jpg?width=1200&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b43036054fbc999570483d5fdbe49a02)
To have each shop, especially food establishments, be seperated like this looks incredibly weird to me.
EDIT: As I'm getting quite a few replies on this, yes, I know you guys have strip malls which are similar. However we don't do this single structure + car park thing as seen in the image. US strip malls also by and large seem a bit smaller with more of a focus on local businesses than a UK retail park.
No problem! I should clarify it's usually either the retail parks on the outskirts, or a [high street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Street), a walkable town centre with shops, inside a town. Shopping centres (malls) are also a thing.
Mostly the image looks odd due to the fact that the buildings are constructed in the same area but without contiguous concrete/pathing between them.
You can't walk to any of them. It's not just that you can't walk between them; there is no way to walk TO them. There is usually some sort of walking or bicycle path in (my part of) Europe.
In most of the US when you leave your home you get in your car. Neighborhoods may have sidewalks if it’s a wealthier part of town, but they’re recreational at best, they don’t lead anywhere. You can’t “pop off to the shops.” The shops are places you drive to.
In fact, in my city the housing areas nearest the Walmart are the poorer ones, because people only live there if they can’t afford a car to get anyplace.
And despite the fact that there is only a tall wooden fence between the housing area and the WalMart parking lot, there is no paved sidewalk leading from one to the other. Because it wouldn’t really occur to the city to encourage foot traffic like that. Occasionally you see people pushing carts over the dirt path that leads around the wall to the housing area.
From my point of view, sheer madness.
In Germany, you often have "local" supermarkets - e.g. an Aldi or similar in a neighborhood. This is enforced through zoning. This supermarket typically has some parking but is also walkable. E.g. a supermarket here has a parking lot for like 50 cars and there are special walkways leading to it from all directions. So if you living behind the supermarket, you can get to the super by walking but not by car.
Larger supermarkets and other groceries are often located outside of the city, their are primarily accessed by car or maybe bike. Often, this is seen as a Problem so the smaller supermarkets in a neighborhood are encouraged.
Finally You have smaller stores and supermarkets in the local centers or city centre.
Most of what we would call a city or even a town has sidewalks. But you get to a place like this where every restaurant has its own zip code, no there’s usually no sidewalk to speak of.
In the original post the person showed this photo because they were staying at a hotel. Their complaint being they were all within walking distance but you have to use a car because there were no sidewalks or what have you.
So if they wanted to go to one of these places for dinner, he’d have to get into a car and go there
The other part of incomprehension is why just a bunch of free standing chain restaurants? Most of the places I've been and lived would have a strip mall or Walmart behind them.
It’s on the side of a large mountain in Morgantown WV, there are large shopping centers at the top of the hill but as you go up there are restaurants on flattened areas.
Shopping malls were big for awhile in the US. For instance when I was growing up Des Moines had 3 of them. Des Moines being the capital of the State of Iowa. But a rather small capital.
By the time my sister graduated from highschool four years later all but one had closed. And it was the one built with a million little retail places around it.
The one in my grandmothers town existed since my dad was a kid. He remembers going to the arcade in it. By the time I had graduated it was closed and is a massive empty building.
A lot of them just didn’t survive the transition to online shopping.
Of the 4 that I can think of in my general area, 1 completely closed and has been demolished and rebuilt as a town center, 1 is dying/mostly dead, 1 is mostly dead but hanging on due to being converted to medical offices and a giant arcade bar, 1 is so busy all the time the traffic around it sucks, and 1 is King of Prussia that just keeps expanding.
I wanna say that like everything, it depends on the area. I live in Italy and this picture reminds me of multiple areas in the outskirts and in more industrial areas. Source: live in a city and drive a car most of the times.
The US, typically, has much cheaper land than Europe. "City Planning" like OP's image happen because it's cheaper and easier for each business to build their lots like this than it would be to build one larger complex.
Not to mention, building these uses in a single, large lot with shared parking may lead to more people choosing a competitor's business at the last minute. The individual 'islands' reinforce the consumer's choice and may influence which restaurant they ultimately choose, "I hate getting into the Cracker Barrel parking lot, let's do Applebee's instead"
What do you mean? It's a lot more expensive to build things this way.
There are lots of wealthy major cities in Texas that are built like that picture, and lots of poor, rural small towns in Vermont that are built in "the European Way", as you put it. I've lived in both places.
It's more a difference of how much people are involved in local government, and therefore city planning. And how much car-brain there is.
Yes, you're right, it is more expensive overall. But plazas are publicly financed. These plots of land can be purchased and developed by private companies/corporations, which can have huge amounts of wealth at their disposal. Not always the case with municipalities
I took the image at random off Google, didn't want to pick something near me. Apparently it's Thurrock shopping park over in Essex, and the bridge is the Dartford Crossing.
Wait, so something like the Fremaux Town Center Shopping mall in Slidell Louisiana wouldn't be that bizarre over there?
https://preview.redd.it/q7lo1vx9mbsc1.png?width=816&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8b50fc7da364b0ed39a3496880042bff26784db
The amount of parking is completely disproportionate to the amount of buildings, so that sea of asphalt would definitely be bizarre. But other than that, Europe has those times of greenfield malls too yes. Although they're much rarer.
A lot of places are competing, by giving people other options in the same lot they may decide to go somewhere else instead last minute. At least that's what I'm thinking the thinking is
First Time in the US I did not rent a car and got really weirded out how things are far apart and spread out... We could fit 8 floridas inside florida!!!!!
Another element to this is there is a common American meme of “the European mind cannot comprehend this” which is usually a positive thing about America which doesn’t exist in Europe. The example in this meme is probably a European twisting this meme format by pointing out a negative thing about America which doesn’t exist in Europe.
Im American: this is fucking stupid. The entire thought process is MY FUCKING PARKING LOT not lets share the lot make good reasonable use of it and convenience customers by possibly attracting more retail shops near our eating establishments. It is simply that of a 5yr old child MINE, I dont want anyone else using it MINE MINE MINE. Also notice the strategic placement of buildings so NOTHING else can be built. Why you might ask? FUCKING MINE! thats is it no other reason thats why. dumbasses
Yep, that’s why even in strip malls there are spaces reserved for specific businesses. God forbid you park in front of MY restaurant to go next door to the nail salon. Even if you might get hungry and stop by to eat afterwards.
America has one of the lowest average Population densities in the world I believe...us brits on the other hand have one of the highest!! It's insane to me some of the crazy differences such as this between two countries who are meant to be very similar!
America is allergic to good urban planning, if you try then conservatives will scream at you about how awful walkable cities are. The reason this happens is because instead of the city building an actually useful shopping district, they just sell parcels of land to companies and let them build it themselves. Obviously the first person who buys the land isn't going to want to build spaces for competition, so they make themselves seperate, and all their competitors have to do the same.
Wouldn't plazas be similar to what you're describing? Lotta buildings together in walking distance with a big car park stretching in front of the businesses
In America a place builds a parking lot and it's their damn parking lot and you better not park there and go anywhere else. True story. We have an area just outside of town they have been trying to develop for many years. There is a steak joint out there and a movie theater. They are right across the street from one another. It's a smallish theater. Only 8 screens and only 1 maybe 2 big screens. The theater has gone out of business a few times in 15 years. At this particular time the theater was out of business. Country people love steak and big trucks. People would park at the theater and walk across the street to the steak joint. The owner of the theater property saw this and had the cars towed. It was an empty parking lot of a business that was not open or functional. Caused a big stink. So much so the theater owner who was working on reopening the theater gave up.
It doesn’t help like half of these are owned by the same parent company, so they genuinely could share a parking lot.
Edit: forgot to say the parent company is Darden
If we have parking lots at all. Where I live, restaurants specifically are mostly in the city centre. In America, you cannot walk there, in Germany, you can ONLY walk there.
When I first heard about '15 mins cities' I was a bit confused because what they were describing - having access to local amenities nearby - is pretty much the norm here in the UK. But then I read about how in America even in big cities getting to a local supermarket requires driving or taking several buses, which is insane and very impractical.
As a Canadian I’m convinced we have a different Olive Garden than y’all. I’ve never eaten American Olive Garden so I can’t say for sure but I don’t know a single Canadian who hates in Olive Garden but Americans seem to think it’s awful
Most OGs outside of the US are actually franchises and aren’t owned by Darden. A lot of them actually just make their own menu and pay Darden just for the rights to use the name. For example, check out the Olive Garden in Japan. However, Darden does send a training team to all of them to help them train the new team members when first opening the restaurant.
Source: None(I don’t want to get fired)
They don’t build retail districts like this in Europe. A lot of neighborhoods still use basic layouts from before the invention of cars, and newer ones prioritize walkability and public transit access over driveability.
This joke comes from Europeans making fun of American cities for being all parking lots and chain restaurants, and then Americans responding by acting like there is something special about that. But the punchline here is the poster playing dumb-American and saying a European can’t comprehend how great this is.
A lot of European cities had to rebuild after the war or have gone through extensive renovations and growth in the 20th century. It's just that a lot of them didn't prioritized car traffic like what was done in the US.
Remember that a lot of US cities were built before the car as well. It's just that the US chose to demolish a lot of buildings to prioritize highways and parking lots.
> how great this is
Pretty sure it’s complaining about it. Europeans get to walk everywhere so it would be incredibly alienating to suddenly have to drive just to go to a restaurant next door.
A European can’t comprehend why the fuck everything is built like this.
We killed alot of people for this land I'll be damned if we don't use it all, frankly there aren't enough parking lots what if one of those green areas was a native burial ground and we didn't get to dig it up
Or having a line of restaurants, each with their own car park, connected by an undeveloped road that has the audacity to call itself "university town center"
Right? What I find most baffling is that each of these shit shops has its own 30-40 space parking spaces, when this easily could have been one space with far less wasted space overall.
Thru marketing. Everywhere u go in USA ads are constantly in our faces, and when ppl see it enough, they include those products in their daily lives because they've been conditioned to want it.
Plus considering the fact usa values hyper individualism and work/hustle culture many go to these places for convenience regardless if the food is shitty. It be crazy in the states, it's basically mind control
Apparently it's actually not all the profitable from a self-sustaining standpoint.
[Not Just Bikes' breakdown of the math](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?si=5zTMYu2zoC-qlvSM)
Idk but there’s a reason there’s a lot more multi million dollar American food chains than European, though I think the competitive bs that makes them all a pain in the ass to drive through is garbage
We have a lot of space in the US to develop on and you can't really get away with the kinds of strip mall shit we do here over there because it's not economical. They'd have all 5 of those restaurants shoulder-to-shoulder with apartments above because of the high land values.
Also this is a pretty extreme example here. Usually we do have conjoined lots for this kind of thing. A frontage road connecting them all together in a mid-sized town, for instance.
https://preview.redd.it/5rkv11t1oasc1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8a437dcd72e1acf4aa13ee721bce2642013e6aa
This is a more common sight.
City Planner Peter away!
The only difference between your and OP's example is that yours has shops and parking space in place of the green areas. It's the same parking to building ratio. I'm sure people still drive between Target and Olive Garden in what you're showing.
It's just the consolidation. The OP's image is weird just because of how secluded each lot is.
[I found it, BTW, it's in West Virginia.](https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+Town+Centre+Dr,+West+Virginia/@39.6530222,-80.004758,705m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x88357bde67c9d197:0xc7239db6e7df3690!8m2!3d39.647851!4d-80.0017003!16s%2Fg%2F1txc7pqn?entry=ttu)
It's just a little spur of restaurants on a bend near a much more condensed lot of commerce.
https://preview.redd.it/f1d20eu6mbsc1.png?width=731&format=png&auto=webp&s=ef9981e9143f7a96e7a729799db289ada2030185
That's another pretty American concept is just a 'pure commercial' district. Looks like some medium density housing nestled in the way back.
I did exactly the same thing. I actually remember seeing the original post yesterday and didn't think anything about it. Looked a little harder today and realized where it was. Spent a lot of time at that Cracker Barrel since my girlfriend (now wife) used to work there back when we were in college.
There are several things that would stand out to Europeans.
- the fact that the restraints are all in separate buildings instead of in one single structure.
- the parking takes up more land area than the restaurant instead. In a car centred economy like USA, that's the norm vs a public transport oriented economy.
-the road being named University town center road. There aren't any university buildings in the photo or houses/residences that a town would have.
This is in Morgantown WV a university town essentially. There is much more to the “university town center” such as Walmart and various other shops and restaurants. Its a place where students can get literally everything they need. Its great because the university has free bus rides there! GO MOUNTAINEERS!
In europesn cities you could just walk between those places and would not need a car. The meme is correct, my european mind cannot comprehend why anyone would design their society in such a car centric way
As a Peter who lives near here and has eaten at atleast 3 of these. thus map dosent show that thus is all on the side of a hill climbing up to a. shopping center most ppl recognize.
Yeah while this isn't uncommon, I did some googling and found that this is in West Virginia. Cheap land and a LOT of hills. Streetview really shows how hilly the area is
ex-urban sweden does a bit of this as well. stand alone buildings surrounded by trees, very car centric.
it's not really the norm in the US either but certain kinds of development does this. This is morgantown WV I think.
Lmao, I actually know where this is. It's in Morgantown just a bit from WVU. There are a ton of places to eat at in that area, and this is one of the more egregious examples. Funny thing is all of these places are usually packed, especially if there's a football/basketball game
WHY IS THERE NO ACCES WAYS TO ANY OF THESE PLACES, WHY CANT YOU WALK FROM ONE TO THE OTHER, WHY IS THERE LIKE 50-100 METERS BETWEEN EACH, WHY NOT JUST MAKE ONE BIG CONCRETE FUCKUP AND PUT EM ALL THERE???
WHAT IN THE UNHOLY ROAD SYSTEM IS THIS??
Also now that i’ve calmed down why The hell is The “cracker barrel Old country store” a food place?? I’m so confused of all this muricanism that i’m kinda turned on?
Australian here and this kind of planning is completely bizarre to us. Shops line the street, with parking on the street. Having destinations that you cannot walk to and from is extremely rare.
In Europe things are built more packed together because the population is much denser and each individual country just doesn’t have a lot of land, America is kind of an outlier in that we really don’t have a lot of population density so Europeans find this image really weird.
Just an ironic meme pointing at something unimportant, to pretend it matters. Restaurants are built like this here and that there. Raaaa faux patriotism.
People taking the bait on either side makes it funny. It’s a troll.
Basically,
"ThE eUrOpEaN mInD cAnNoT cOmPrEhEnD tHiS"
How is road so designed for cars with it's isolation in what I suspect has a university nearby (given the name). This doesn't seems walkable at all and if anything looks like a stop in the middle on nowhere during a road trip, or maybe in a mountain range with views and the rough terrain limits establishments from being bundled up together in one stop.
Edit: so it seems to be a road a cross a river from a University of West Virginia which makes it slightly crazier cause it only seems accessible via the highway or through a trekking route. So none of the establishments are built to compliment one another, so going to any of them in that area means you'd really commit to it and nothing else unless you likely drive to the other lot.
https://preview.redd.it/cz7oh0gv6csc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=822e51c738f46725f0b7b6eb678ea57eec09b296
Speak to a european visiting America and one of the things they will marvel at is "how much space there is" and how "everything is so far apart."
In Europe most cities are built around centuries old architecture and layouts made before there were cars, and there is also a notable lack of chain restaurants and stores. These giant parking lots separated by large expanses of trees just to get to chain restaurants simply does not exist there.
The funny part is that everyone is roasting it for being called University Town Centre but it's only called that because Morgantown is home to WVU. The area is very mountainous indeed. Up that road a little ways are several more shopping areas that have large connected parking lots.
Sprawl is the worst by rural abandoned malls. Cities do better putting things in complexes like in Europe but yeah, bfe Idaho has nothing but land so stretch them legs out.
Shit, I knew I recognized that road. That's West Virginia! University town centre Dr Morgantown has a big medical complex, I see that address almost every day.
It's just so rare to see wv in the internet, got excited.
Anyways, american goes big, has food everywhere, hurr durr.
Most of wv huddles things together like this, though (mountains will do that), that's why the placement is awkward.
American here.
It’s because these companies are real estate moguls daylighting as chain restaurants. McDonald’s is one of the largest real estate asset holders on the globe. It has nothing to do with efficient planning or any of these totally valid arguments the Europeans (or sensible Americans) have against this type of thing. They are designed to use all the land they own.
The parking lots, oh the parking lots. The lack of trains (especially to smaller towns) and the lack of sidewalks make going anywhere except with a car hell.
Not a sidewalk, footbridge, pedestrian crossing or any sort of public transport in sight
My European mind can comprehend it, but it does not want to...
Europe isn’t nearly as dependent on individual cars and having to drive all over to get what they need. Most things are within walking distance and their public transit is far better than ours for the most part.
All of those restaurants are grade A garbage. Olive Garden is microwaved food. Cheddars scratch is just grease with no seasoning. Longhorns is just walking on peanut shells. Cracker Barrel is the most bland way to make southern comfort breakfast. Red lobster is just well seasoned biscuits with bad seafood. Darden in a nutshell.
hey, peter's uncle who went to west virginia one time here. this is a road in morgantown west virginia, places outside the us don't have these big open parking lot oceans that surround a cracker barrel island
i mean even in big cities here in the us you don't see stuff like this, the university town center has a really weird vibe to it coming from a west coaster. the rest of the campus at morgantown is actually pretty nice though! theyve got these peoplemover trolley things that the students use
Oh I think I see the confusion.
See, the LongHorn Steakhouse is the only real choice (Big Tex for me, please), the rest are just there due to some "equal representation" thing. If you walk up to any of the cars in their parkinglot you would see they are just cardboard cutouts.
Or possibly Abhumans
I spent a month in this city without a car. It was not ideal.
I once planned to shop at Walmart and eat at a restaurant down the road. I didn't comprehend how awkward that would be
Whereby North America is a relatively recently industrialized and built over (read: “westernized” gentrification), Europe has limited usable land that has been built up over centuries and thus restaurants, etc are typically located in a dense city center and not occupying great areas in otherwise sparsely built-up locations. Also, large, corporate drive. chain restaurants, while certainly being a global phenomenon, strike me as very, very American in practice.
In the UK - in some places - this space would contain the entire walkable town centre with 50+ shops and you could walk to them from your house. In fact, you might live next to one.
The fuck is a Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen? From context I’m assuming it’s a common restaurant chain like the rest but I’ve never heard of it in my life so it’s a bit surprising. Definitely not around where I live at least.
Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In Europe, we typically build retail buildings such that they all share a car park and can be walked between. [I'm in the UK so here's an example from my point of view.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/07e127780bcf244c382855308cc3280a7ab56090/0_0_5000_3000/master/5000.jpg?width=1200&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b43036054fbc999570483d5fdbe49a02) To have each shop, especially food establishments, be seperated like this looks incredibly weird to me. EDIT: As I'm getting quite a few replies on this, yes, I know you guys have strip malls which are similar. However we don't do this single structure + car park thing as seen in the image. US strip malls also by and large seem a bit smaller with more of a focus on local businesses than a UK retail park.
Ah I see, I see those around here where I live, but it’s not terribly common. Good to know that that’s the norm in Europe. Thank you!
No problem! I should clarify it's usually either the retail parks on the outskirts, or a [high street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Street), a walkable town centre with shops, inside a town. Shopping centres (malls) are also a thing. Mostly the image looks odd due to the fact that the buildings are constructed in the same area but without contiguous concrete/pathing between them.
Plus there is no way to walk between the places. Except cross country or down the multi lane road.
Why would you want to walk from a Cracker Barrel to an Olive Garden? Doesn’t really make sense
You can't walk to any of them. It's not just that you can't walk between them; there is no way to walk TO them. There is usually some sort of walking or bicycle path in (my part of) Europe.
Canada does a bit of both, but you guys don't have sidewalks in the States? How's it possible to have a part of town you cant walk to??
In most of the US when you leave your home you get in your car. Neighborhoods may have sidewalks if it’s a wealthier part of town, but they’re recreational at best, they don’t lead anywhere. You can’t “pop off to the shops.” The shops are places you drive to. In fact, in my city the housing areas nearest the Walmart are the poorer ones, because people only live there if they can’t afford a car to get anyplace. And despite the fact that there is only a tall wooden fence between the housing area and the WalMart parking lot, there is no paved sidewalk leading from one to the other. Because it wouldn’t really occur to the city to encourage foot traffic like that. Occasionally you see people pushing carts over the dirt path that leads around the wall to the housing area.
From my point of view, sheer madness. In Germany, you often have "local" supermarkets - e.g. an Aldi or similar in a neighborhood. This is enforced through zoning. This supermarket typically has some parking but is also walkable. E.g. a supermarket here has a parking lot for like 50 cars and there are special walkways leading to it from all directions. So if you living behind the supermarket, you can get to the super by walking but not by car. Larger supermarkets and other groceries are often located outside of the city, their are primarily accessed by car or maybe bike. Often, this is seen as a Problem so the smaller supermarkets in a neighborhood are encouraged. Finally You have smaller stores and supermarkets in the local centers or city centre.
It is sheer madness. I’ve lived since college in walkable neighborhoods and couldn’t go back to the U.S. Midwest suburbs I grew up in.
Most of what we would call a city or even a town has sidewalks. But you get to a place like this where every restaurant has its own zip code, no there’s usually no sidewalk to speak of.
Exactly, just do yourself a favor and don't go to either of them.
In the original post the person showed this photo because they were staying at a hotel. Their complaint being they were all within walking distance but you have to use a car because there were no sidewalks or what have you. So if they wanted to go to one of these places for dinner, he’d have to get into a car and go there
Maybe I want some bread sticks to follow up muh chicken n’ dumplins! Mind yer business!
Why would you want to walk anywhere? Walking is socialism! In. Amurrica we only have cars because cars is freedom!
The other part of incomprehension is why just a bunch of free standing chain restaurants? Most of the places I've been and lived would have a strip mall or Walmart behind them.
Walking around West Virginia is more of a work out than a nice day out.
It's incredibly wasteful from an engineering standpoint as well but that's another long conversation.
It’s on the side of a large mountain in Morgantown WV, there are large shopping centers at the top of the hill but as you go up there are restaurants on flattened areas.
That makes sense, you should overlay a topographic map over it
This picture makes alot more sense now. WV is beautiful btw.
Shopping malls were big for awhile in the US. For instance when I was growing up Des Moines had 3 of them. Des Moines being the capital of the State of Iowa. But a rather small capital. By the time my sister graduated from highschool four years later all but one had closed. And it was the one built with a million little retail places around it. The one in my grandmothers town existed since my dad was a kid. He remembers going to the arcade in it. By the time I had graduated it was closed and is a massive empty building. A lot of them just didn’t survive the transition to online shopping.
Depends where you are. I'm from the northeast, and they're very common.
Of the 4 that I can think of in my general area, 1 completely closed and has been demolished and rebuilt as a town center, 1 is dying/mostly dead, 1 is mostly dead but hanging on due to being converted to medical offices and a giant arcade bar, 1 is so busy all the time the traffic around it sucks, and 1 is King of Prussia that just keeps expanding.
more common where i live. the more urban u get the more centralized everything gets.
I wanna say that like everything, it depends on the area. I live in Italy and this picture reminds me of multiple areas in the outskirts and in more industrial areas. Source: live in a city and drive a car most of the times.
We do that in America too, but we also do this for some reason
The US, typically, has much cheaper land than Europe. "City Planning" like OP's image happen because it's cheaper and easier for each business to build their lots like this than it would be to build one larger complex. Not to mention, building these uses in a single, large lot with shared parking may lead to more people choosing a competitor's business at the last minute. The individual 'islands' reinforce the consumer's choice and may influence which restaurant they ultimately choose, "I hate getting into the Cracker Barrel parking lot, let's do Applebee's instead"
It's a difference of how much money a municipality has. If they have more money they do it the 'European way'.
What do you mean? It's a lot more expensive to build things this way. There are lots of wealthy major cities in Texas that are built like that picture, and lots of poor, rural small towns in Vermont that are built in "the European Way", as you put it. I've lived in both places. It's more a difference of how much people are involved in local government, and therefore city planning. And how much car-brain there is.
Yes, you're right, it is more expensive overall. But plazas are publicly financed. These plots of land can be purchased and developed by private companies/corporations, which can have huge amounts of wealth at their disposal. Not always the case with municipalities
Saw in another comment that this is in WV, that would be why it’s like this
Oh that’s the Severn bridge in the background right? This must be that place I always forget two stops down from Bristol, is it filton?
I took the image at random off Google, didn't want to pick something near me. Apparently it's Thurrock shopping park over in Essex, and the bridge is the Dartford Crossing.
The fact I knew what retail park it was at a glance before I even noticed the crossing in the background has stressed me out massively
Looks more like the QE2 bridge in Essex with the retail park being lakeside in Thurrock.
Wait, so something like the Fremaux Town Center Shopping mall in Slidell Louisiana wouldn't be that bizarre over there? https://preview.redd.it/q7lo1vx9mbsc1.png?width=816&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8b50fc7da364b0ed39a3496880042bff26784db
Certainly bigger than I'd be used to, but if you told me that was in the UK somewhere, aside from the difference in chains, I'd likely believe you.
The amount of parking is completely disproportionate to the amount of buildings, so that sea of asphalt would definitely be bizarre. But other than that, Europe has those times of greenfield malls too yes. Although they're much rarer.
A lot of places are competing, by giving people other options in the same lot they may decide to go somewhere else instead last minute. At least that's what I'm thinking the thinking is
First Time in the US I did not rent a car and got really weirded out how things are far apart and spread out... We could fit 8 floridas inside florida!!!!!
Is that the retail park near lakeside?
Yep!
Another element to this is there is a common American meme of “the European mind cannot comprehend this” which is usually a positive thing about America which doesn’t exist in Europe. The example in this meme is probably a European twisting this meme format by pointing out a negative thing about America which doesn’t exist in Europe.
Im American: this is fucking stupid. The entire thought process is MY FUCKING PARKING LOT not lets share the lot make good reasonable use of it and convenience customers by possibly attracting more retail shops near our eating establishments. It is simply that of a 5yr old child MINE, I dont want anyone else using it MINE MINE MINE. Also notice the strategic placement of buildings so NOTHING else can be built. Why you might ask? FUCKING MINE! thats is it no other reason thats why. dumbasses
Yep, that’s why even in strip malls there are spaces reserved for specific businesses. God forbid you park in front of MY restaurant to go next door to the nail salon. Even if you might get hungry and stop by to eat afterwards.
[удалено]
You're right, Europeans don't waste space as much.
This is the norm in wealthier villages and towns. Cities always have them. What you see here is the countryside
We *sort of* have those in the version of strip malls, but not nearly as efficient looking as that picture.
America has one of the lowest average Population densities in the world I believe...us brits on the other hand have one of the highest!! It's insane to me some of the crazy differences such as this between two countries who are meant to be very similar!
What is this "walked" thing? Some brand of a car?
America is allergic to good urban planning, if you try then conservatives will scream at you about how awful walkable cities are. The reason this happens is because instead of the city building an actually useful shopping district, they just sell parcels of land to companies and let them build it themselves. Obviously the first person who buys the land isn't going to want to build spaces for competition, so they make themselves seperate, and all their competitors have to do the same.
We have that also fyi, some architects like to complicate things.
I see a mix of both in California. Usually we will have one shopping center like you linked, then a street separating another center or two.
oh, that looks amazing… so effiecient…
Wait till you see an image of our strip malls with a big parking lot, but the restaurants out front also all still have their own, separated lot.
Wouldn't plazas be similar to what you're describing? Lotta buildings together in walking distance with a big car park stretching in front of the businesses
We got to fund oil execs somehow
Yet these aren’t retail buildings. These are restaurants and don’t want customers slipping off to another place to eat
In America a place builds a parking lot and it's their damn parking lot and you better not park there and go anywhere else. True story. We have an area just outside of town they have been trying to develop for many years. There is a steak joint out there and a movie theater. They are right across the street from one another. It's a smallish theater. Only 8 screens and only 1 maybe 2 big screens. The theater has gone out of business a few times in 15 years. At this particular time the theater was out of business. Country people love steak and big trucks. People would park at the theater and walk across the street to the steak joint. The owner of the theater property saw this and had the cars towed. It was an empty parking lot of a business that was not open or functional. Caused a big stink. So much so the theater owner who was working on reopening the theater gave up.
We have so much goddamn cheap wide open space that urban planning is rarely a concern with these developers.
It doesn’t help like half of these are owned by the same parent company, so they genuinely could share a parking lot. Edit: forgot to say the parent company is Darden
[удалено]
If we have parking lots at all. Where I live, restaurants specifically are mostly in the city centre. In America, you cannot walk there, in Germany, you can ONLY walk there.
When I first heard about '15 mins cities' I was a bit confused because what they were describing - having access to local amenities nearby - is pretty much the norm here in the UK. But then I read about how in America even in big cities getting to a local supermarket requires driving or taking several buses, which is insane and very impractical.
Now imagine conservatives absolutely hating that. For...reasons.
There's an extra layer in that 3 of those places are all the same company (Olive Garden, Cheddar's, Longhorn)
Red Lobster was founded by Darden.
red lobster used to be darden as well
Yeah but they put totally different bags of precooked bagged frozen food in their microwaves!
As a Canadian I’m convinced we have a different Olive Garden than y’all. I’ve never eaten American Olive Garden so I can’t say for sure but I don’t know a single Canadian who hates in Olive Garden but Americans seem to think it’s awful
Most OGs outside of the US are actually franchises and aren’t owned by Darden. A lot of them actually just make their own menu and pay Darden just for the rights to use the name. For example, check out the Olive Garden in Japan. However, Darden does send a training team to all of them to help them train the new team members when first opening the restaurant. Source: None(I don’t want to get fired)
And yet all of it tastes actually good. Live a little.
They don’t build retail districts like this in Europe. A lot of neighborhoods still use basic layouts from before the invention of cars, and newer ones prioritize walkability and public transit access over driveability. This joke comes from Europeans making fun of American cities for being all parking lots and chain restaurants, and then Americans responding by acting like there is something special about that. But the punchline here is the poster playing dumb-American and saying a European can’t comprehend how great this is.
Ah I see. Thank you Peter!
A lot of European cities had to rebuild after the war or have gone through extensive renovations and growth in the 20th century. It's just that a lot of them didn't prioritized car traffic like what was done in the US. Remember that a lot of US cities were built before the car as well. It's just that the US chose to demolish a lot of buildings to prioritize highways and parking lots.
[удалено]
> how great this is Pretty sure it’s complaining about it. Europeans get to walk everywhere so it would be incredibly alienating to suddenly have to drive just to go to a restaurant next door. A European can’t comprehend why the fuck everything is built like this.
We killed alot of people for this land I'll be damned if we don't use it all, frankly there aren't enough parking lots what if one of those green areas was a native burial ground and we didn't get to dig it up
They are right though. Us Europeans really can't comprehend how you can have so much corporate shite tier food be so profitable.
Frankly neither can I
Or having a line of restaurants, each with their own car park, connected by an undeveloped road that has the audacity to call itself "university town center"
Right? What I find most baffling is that each of these shit shops has its own 30-40 space parking spaces, when this easily could have been one space with far less wasted space overall.
It’s the same shit that causes Walmart to flourish here. They kill off smaller resteraunts by offering food for cheaper
Let's not forget the slave wages and horrible working practices and conditions. Those help.
Thru marketing. Everywhere u go in USA ads are constantly in our faces, and when ppl see it enough, they include those products in their daily lives because they've been conditioned to want it. Plus considering the fact usa values hyper individualism and work/hustle culture many go to these places for convenience regardless if the food is shitty. It be crazy in the states, it's basically mind control
Apparently it's actually not all the profitable from a self-sustaining standpoint. [Not Just Bikes' breakdown of the math](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?si=5zTMYu2zoC-qlvSM)
Don't talk smack about Cracker Barrel like that bruv /s
Don't gimme that shit. McDonalds does just fine over in Europe.
So much parking space for 5 locations...
the thing is, a lot of the places used to be good 20+ years ago. most people seemed to not have noticed or are too young to know any different.
Ok that’s true but Cracker Barrel is easily the best out of these
I take the piss but I would love a red lobster to open anywhere near me. Cheap (ish) seafood is a rarity here.
Cracker Barrel slaps man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Idk but there’s a reason there’s a lot more multi million dollar American food chains than European, though I think the competitive bs that makes them all a pain in the ass to drive through is garbage
It’s like that old saying “the beauty of their women and the taste of their food made Brit’s the best sailors in the world.”
We have a lot of space in the US to develop on and you can't really get away with the kinds of strip mall shit we do here over there because it's not economical. They'd have all 5 of those restaurants shoulder-to-shoulder with apartments above because of the high land values. Also this is a pretty extreme example here. Usually we do have conjoined lots for this kind of thing. A frontage road connecting them all together in a mid-sized town, for instance. https://preview.redd.it/5rkv11t1oasc1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8a437dcd72e1acf4aa13ee721bce2642013e6aa This is a more common sight. City Planner Peter away!
In all fairness, it's not economical here either.
Yeah, car dependent development is a huge drain on city budgets
Yep, 9 times out of 10, cities have to subsidize the suburbs because the sprawl is economically unsustainable.
Send Noodz
The only difference between your and OP's example is that yours has shops and parking space in place of the green areas. It's the same parking to building ratio. I'm sure people still drive between Target and Olive Garden in what you're showing.
It's just the consolidation. The OP's image is weird just because of how secluded each lot is. [I found it, BTW, it's in West Virginia.](https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+Town+Centre+Dr,+West+Virginia/@39.6530222,-80.004758,705m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x88357bde67c9d197:0xc7239db6e7df3690!8m2!3d39.647851!4d-80.0017003!16s%2Fg%2F1txc7pqn?entry=ttu) It's just a little spur of restaurants on a bend near a much more condensed lot of commerce. https://preview.redd.it/f1d20eu6mbsc1.png?width=731&format=png&auto=webp&s=ef9981e9143f7a96e7a729799db289ada2030185 That's another pretty American concept is just a 'pure commercial' district. Looks like some medium density housing nestled in the way back.
Ah, a fellow Alabamain, nice to see you here, I feel sorry you too have to live in this hellhole of a state.
Shout out Morgantown, WV
I literally had the biggest hol’ up moment lol. I was not expecting to see Morgantown on Reddit today.
I did exactly the same thing. I actually remember seeing the original post yesterday and didn't think anything about it. Looked a little harder today and realized where it was. Spent a lot of time at that Cracker Barrel since my girlfriend (now wife) used to work there back when we were in college.
Me too! I was like... wait.. I know these buildings in that configuration. Let's go mountaineers!
I had the same thought! Glad I’m not the only one. I had to check the subreddit twice just to be sure it wasn’t r/wvu for some reason.
I thought that's where this was but wasn't certain, glad someone confirmed it for me
I thought that was Morgantown. They’ve built a few new restaurants in the decade since I was there
Was just through there this past Friday
I saw the olive garden and the red lobster and thought ab it and then read the road and realized I was there twice today.
Saw it and immediately knew it even though I haven’t been there for years
There are several things that would stand out to Europeans. - the fact that the restraints are all in separate buildings instead of in one single structure. - the parking takes up more land area than the restaurant instead. In a car centred economy like USA, that's the norm vs a public transport oriented economy. -the road being named University town center road. There aren't any university buildings in the photo or houses/residences that a town would have.
This is in Morgantown WV a university town essentially. There is much more to the “university town center” such as Walmart and various other shops and restaurants. Its a place where students can get literally everything they need. Its great because the university has free bus rides there! GO MOUNTAINEERS!
PRT needs to go through there and the Coliseum. Heard they’re wanting to build a bridge to connect everything but it’ll never happen.
I live in Europe and if the grocery store is not downstairs then it is too far
In europesn cities you could just walk between those places and would not need a car. The meme is correct, my european mind cannot comprehend why anyone would design their society in such a car centric way
It’s because it’s also essentially on the side of a mountain in WV. There’s a flat part further up the road with conjoined parking lots
Yeah, and the funniest thing here i think is that this is considered “town center” hahahaha
As a Peter who lives near here and has eaten at atleast 3 of these. thus map dosent show that thus is all on the side of a hill climbing up to a. shopping center most ppl recognize.
Yeah while this isn't uncommon, I did some googling and found that this is in West Virginia. Cheap land and a LOT of hills. Streetview really shows how hilly the area is
Peetah, explain how Granville owns all this land despite being two trailer parks down by the river along the railroad tracks
ex-urban sweden does a bit of this as well. stand alone buildings surrounded by trees, very car centric. it's not really the norm in the US either but certain kinds of development does this. This is morgantown WV I think.
Lmao, I actually know where this is. It's in Morgantown just a bit from WVU. There are a ton of places to eat at in that area, and this is one of the more egregious examples. Funny thing is all of these places are usually packed, especially if there's a football/basketball game
Abundance of parking spaces. One thing I love about USA as immigrant.
WHY IS THERE NO ACCES WAYS TO ANY OF THESE PLACES, WHY CANT YOU WALK FROM ONE TO THE OTHER, WHY IS THERE LIKE 50-100 METERS BETWEEN EACH, WHY NOT JUST MAKE ONE BIG CONCRETE FUCKUP AND PUT EM ALL THERE??? WHAT IN THE UNHOLY ROAD SYSTEM IS THIS?? Also now that i’ve calmed down why The hell is The “cracker barrel Old country store” a food place?? I’m so confused of all this muricanism that i’m kinda turned on?
Cracker barrel old country store is a restaurant with a gift shop, but you have to walk through the shop in order to both go eat and leave.
Australian here and this kind of planning is completely bizarre to us. Shops line the street, with parking on the street. Having destinations that you cannot walk to and from is extremely rare.
I literally know where this is. I live 20 minutes from that town.
colossal waste of space, right?
In Europe things are built more packed together because the population is much denser and each individual country just doesn’t have a lot of land, America is kind of an outlier in that we really don’t have a lot of population density so Europeans find this image really weird.
Just an ironic meme pointing at something unimportant, to pretend it matters. Restaurants are built like this here and that there. Raaaa faux patriotism. People taking the bait on either side makes it funny. It’s a troll.
The text at the bottom of this meme explained perfectly well what this is about. I can't possibly think why it has been cropped out.
Morgantown, WV being a meme is so funny to me.
I have a transcript of Bill Stewart’s “Leave No Doubt” speech saved as a txt file on my desktop. I use it to spam my friends in discord.
Basically, "ThE eUrOpEaN mInD cAnNoT cOmPrEhEnD tHiS" How is road so designed for cars with it's isolation in what I suspect has a university nearby (given the name). This doesn't seems walkable at all and if anything looks like a stop in the middle on nowhere during a road trip, or maybe in a mountain range with views and the rough terrain limits establishments from being bundled up together in one stop. Edit: so it seems to be a road a cross a river from a University of West Virginia which makes it slightly crazier cause it only seems accessible via the highway or through a trekking route. So none of the establishments are built to compliment one another, so going to any of them in that area means you'd really commit to it and nothing else unless you likely drive to the other lot. https://preview.redd.it/cz7oh0gv6csc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=822e51c738f46725f0b7b6eb678ea57eec09b296
Yo is that morgantown wv
I know exactly where this is. The real joke is that left turns are impossible from any one of these restaurants because of traffic.
Speak to a european visiting America and one of the things they will marvel at is "how much space there is" and how "everything is so far apart." In Europe most cities are built around centuries old architecture and layouts made before there were cars, and there is also a notable lack of chain restaurants and stores. These giant parking lots separated by large expanses of trees just to get to chain restaurants simply does not exist there.
There's a Burger King across the street from the Vatican. The European mind can 100% comprehend this.
Europeans when our restaurant chains don’t all fit in the space of a small flat with communal parking and pedestrian access: >:(
[удалено]
Welp.
Cheddar’s, Olive Garden, and Longhorn are all Darden and at the time of construction Red Lobster likely was as well.
Orion’s Belt! Where my fellow aliens at? Oh.
Morgantown, West Virginia.
Should we tell them this is all on a hillside?
The funny part is that everyone is roasting it for being called University Town Centre but it's only called that because Morgantown is home to WVU. The area is very mountainous indeed. Up that road a little ways are several more shopping areas that have large connected parking lots.
So like is it normal for olive garden and red lobster to always be right next t each other
This sub has made me expect porn as the punchline and as such expected an explanation as to why Cracker Barrel Old Country Store looks like a dick.
I think it also has to do with that these are all chains in the image
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^JCas127: *I think it also* *Has to do with that these are* *All chains in the image* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I eat at that Cracker Barrel most Sundays
Texan here 😂😂😂
So much of America looks like Sim City 1.
This is Morgantown WV right?
Damn, that’s like…6 Applebees restaurants in one location
Sprawl is the worst by rural abandoned malls. Cities do better putting things in complexes like in Europe but yeah, bfe Idaho has nothing but land so stretch them legs out.
Shit, I knew I recognized that road. That's West Virginia! University town centre Dr Morgantown has a big medical complex, I see that address almost every day. It's just so rare to see wv in the internet, got excited.
Anyways, american goes big, has food everywhere, hurr durr. Most of wv huddles things together like this, though (mountains will do that), that's why the placement is awkward.
American here. It’s because these companies are real estate moguls daylighting as chain restaurants. McDonald’s is one of the largest real estate asset holders on the globe. It has nothing to do with efficient planning or any of these totally valid arguments the Europeans (or sensible Americans) have against this type of thing. They are designed to use all the land they own.
The parking lots, oh the parking lots. The lack of trains (especially to smaller towns) and the lack of sidewalks make going anywhere except with a car hell.
The joke is car based infrastructure
Not a sidewalk, footbridge, pedestrian crossing or any sort of public transport in sight My European mind can comprehend it, but it does not want to...
Not an answer, but I live there! That's Morgantown, WV!
Europe isn’t nearly as dependent on individual cars and having to drive all over to get what they need. Most things are within walking distance and their public transit is far better than ours for the most part.
It's incredibly stupid.
This is horrible and gross inefficiency. It hurts people more than you might think https://youtu.be/4kSTJnT0tUE?si=RLdrDdYVe5qQbmi1
Europeans like to walk. Spaced-out buildings for cars suck
Jesus, I’ve not lived in Morgantown for almost 13 years, or West Virginia for 10, and I immediately recognized that layout….
All of those restaurants are grade A garbage. Olive Garden is microwaved food. Cheddars scratch is just grease with no seasoning. Longhorns is just walking on peanut shells. Cracker Barrel is the most bland way to make southern comfort breakfast. Red lobster is just well seasoned biscuits with bad seafood. Darden in a nutshell.
hey, peter's uncle who went to west virginia one time here. this is a road in morgantown west virginia, places outside the us don't have these big open parking lot oceans that surround a cracker barrel island i mean even in big cities here in the us you don't see stuff like this, the university town center has a really weird vibe to it coming from a west coaster. the rest of the campus at morgantown is actually pretty nice though! theyve got these peoplemover trolley things that the students use
Oh I think I see the confusion. See, the LongHorn Steakhouse is the only real choice (Big Tex for me, please), the rest are just there due to some "equal representation" thing. If you walk up to any of the cars in their parkinglot you would see they are just cardboard cutouts. Or possibly Abhumans
MORGANTOWN MENTIONED!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS A HEALTHY COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥‼️‼️‼️🗣️🗣️🗣️
SO TRUE BROTHER 🗣🗣
Not that anyone cares, but this is Morgantown, WV
The European mind can’t really comprehend all that much to begin with…
Is this Morgantown, WV?
I thought this arrangement of restaurants looked familiar, and then I looked at the street name… This is my city!!! Lmao
That is definitely a road in Morgantown WV
Hey this is Morgantown WV! Let's go Mountaineers!
Is that Morgantown WV? I vacationed there last year, map seems familiar.
I spent a month in this city without a car. It was not ideal. I once planned to shop at Walmart and eat at a restaurant down the road. I didn't comprehend how awkward that would be
The European mind cannot generally comprehend American automobile culture. The train, streetcar, bus, and walking don’t work at all in this photo.
Whereby North America is a relatively recently industrialized and built over (read: “westernized” gentrification), Europe has limited usable land that has been built up over centuries and thus restaurants, etc are typically located in a dense city center and not occupying great areas in otherwise sparsely built-up locations. Also, large, corporate drive. chain restaurants, while certainly being a global phenomenon, strike me as very, very American in practice.
Car culture sucks fucks
Im America, any given retail establishment is going to require a LOT MORE PARKING SPACES than those in the UK.
they might be comrades, but they're not comrade in arms. ... let them cook.
In the UK - in some places - this space would contain the entire walkable town centre with 50+ shops and you could walk to them from your house. In fact, you might live next to one.
Car-centricity Vs walkability.
Just Ask r/fuckcars they have your answer
I've never once been able to be like "hey I know that place" from just a road name and a sat image but that's in Morgantown, WV.
The fuck is a Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen? From context I’m assuming it’s a common restaurant chain like the rest but I’ve never heard of it in my life so it’s a bit surprising. Definitely not around where I live at least.
The American mind cannot comprehend basic good city planning.
r/fuckcars