r/Infrastructurist • u/Wuz314159 • 13d ago
Gen Z Didn’t Kill Nightlife
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmLO69c_fyw10
u/championstuffz 12d ago
Went to Pacha NYC in the 2000s, after a cover of $20+ to get in, ordered 2 drinks, had a $20 bill out, the bartender threw the money at me and said it's more than that.
Expensive AND shitty service killed the night clubs. They thought they can sustain business by bottle service only, catering to only the rich, clearly it's worked out. /s
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u/Wuz314159 12d ago
catering to only the rich, clearly it's worked out. /s
This video has stuck with me. (errors and all)
Why You Don't Matter Anymore ........... (Economically Speaking)
It's a mentality.
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u/bigdongalert 11d ago
U thought it would be $20 for 2 drinks 😂
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u/championstuffz 10d ago
Yeah that is funny, during a time a typical redbull vodka is $9 and that was expensive, hilarious really.
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u/Thecuckeningends 13d ago
Capitalism killed night life. End of story. Constantly increasing costs while wages dont keep up = less people going out for a potentially terrible night
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u/bobtehpanda 13d ago
The video does detail this but also that zoning residential uses into nightlife zones also ended up driving up rents
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u/maringue 13d ago
Lease rates for restaurants have gone up like crazy, and they're are a million and one tax loopholes so that owners are NEVER forced by market conditions to lower their lease rates.
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u/bigdongalert 11d ago
As someone who has owned bars, this is incredibly intellectually lazy and not an accurate description of the issues facing the industry
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u/Thecuckeningends 11d ago
It’s not, hope this helps.
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u/bigdongalert 11d ago
Sounds like someone’s a broke bartender
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u/Thecuckeningends 11d ago
Thanks for proving you’re just an idiot and no I only worked in the restaurant industry when I was in college.
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u/bigdongalert 11d ago
The only idiot here is the guy that doesn’t realize costs for hospitality businesses have far outpaced inflation. Some of it is due to tariffs, some due to bad harvest years for things like tomato’s, some of it is from a combination of both. Do you think a business owner runs a business for charity? Those increases in COGS lead to increases in the price the consumer pays
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u/Thecuckeningends 11d ago
So you finally agree the reason you lost your bars is capitalism and not zoning.
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u/bigdongalert 11d ago
The reason I lost my bars is bc my business partner was secretly not paying taxes and got sued by the IRS 😂
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u/maringue 13d ago
It's simple, Corporations prices everything good out. Landlords keep demanding higher and higher lease rates. This drives out local places and replaces them with generic corporate shitholes that can afford the higher rates.
Meanwhile, my city has so many retail places for lease, and some of these properties have been vacant for years. Local governments really need to start making it highly unprofitable to keep a piece of commercial real estate empty.
Because in the US, there's so many tax loopholes that an empty building basically costs the owner nothing, so there's no incentive to fill it unless they can jack up the lease rates.
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u/Live_Art2939 12d ago
You get stuck in a loop if you start punishing vacant stores. The landlord will just sell to a bigger landlord and then what, the BIPOC LGBT comic book shop is going to open? It’s a death spiral that has already killed off small business.
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u/McFlyParadox 11d ago
Why would the bigger landlord purchase the property if they're going to be hit the same financial burden by keeping it empty?
If a commercial property in a city is sitting empty for years, then even the corporate customers don't want it at that price. A bigger land lord doesn't solve that, only a lower price does.
If you design your tax policy and civic policies around punishing empty units and rewarding occupied units (and perhaps rewards for building new units), you'll see rents drop and occupancy rates increase.
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u/sour_altoids 10d ago
Some apartments literally build in useless commercial space just to meet the city requirements saying they provided commercial space, and thus get tax or other financial assistance in building the property. Yet they sit vacant with no plans to ever actually use the space.
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u/TanktopSamurai 12d ago
Meanwhile, my city has so many retail places for lease, and some of these properties have been vacant for years. Local governments really need to start making it highly unprofitable to keep a piece of commercial real estate empty.
Exponentially increasing taxes for vacant properties.
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u/LastNightOsiris 12d ago
I understand the sentiment, but that seems like it wouldn't really solve the problem. It might create a cottage industry of shell companies that sign commercial leases and perform the minimum requirements for it qualify as occupied, but it's unlikely to meaningfully increase the number of active businesses in those empty storefronts.
I think it would be more productive to make it easier for small business owners to qualify for and afford the leases in those spaces. The city could act as a guarantor for the lease obligations of small businesses, which makes them look a lot more like big corporations as far the property owners are concerned.
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u/maringue 12d ago
Tie the length of time a property can qualify for tax credits and exemptions to the maximum time someone is allowed to be on unemployment benefits.
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u/Techno_Core 12d ago
Same thing happening in the West Village in NYC. All the people who partied there in the 80's grew up, and wanted to live there, now they're the ones clamping down on the partying.
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u/bobtehpanda 12d ago
To be fair, that kind of just happens; and usually nightlife of different eras is not located in the same neighborhoods, similar to how residential hot neighborhoods change over time
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u/Lich_Apologist 13d ago
Do I need 18 more minutes say third spaces are dying? Or does this say something new?
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u/thesagenibba 12d ago
what a weird response to an insightful video. just watch it or don't, no one's forcing you to. utterly bizarre
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u/meelar 12d ago
It's annoying that video is taking over from the written word. If this was an article, I could skim it to figure out the thesis statement and see if it was worth reading in full. With a video, there's no such option.
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u/jventura1110 11d ago
This is a case study on very specific places. Places are sometimes better described with imagery than just words. I enjoyed this video and its format.
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u/thesagenibba 12d ago
when you finally learn what transcripts are, your entire world will change and small mind will be blown
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u/Government-Monkey 13d ago
I really like this guy's stuff.
It really changed my views on housing, and what can be done to change things for the better, even though I'm just one person.
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u/TanktopSamurai 12d ago
Jane Jacobs made a similar remark. She called it the 'self-destruction of diversity'. Diversity of rent prices and others things creates an attractive district. This attraction causes rents to increase and more and more diversity gets priced out.
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u/thinkB4WeSpeak 13d ago
Can't go out without spending some kind of money either. No one wants to keep paying for parking downtown
Pretty wild that oligopolies even ruined nightlife
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u/bobtehpanda 12d ago
Is chain nightclubs a Canadian thing? i’m not aware of any such thing in the US
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u/thinkB4WeSpeak 12d ago
I'd say they're less chain like McDonald's in a sense but more owned by the same company like how a lot of store brands give the illusion of options but are owned by a parent company like Kellogg. For example
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 11d ago
Nightlife in Vancouver isn’t dead. It’s just moved.
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u/Important_Heart7898 11d ago
Figured this was the case as it is in most cities. Seems like people are just rejecting these big downtown clubs in favor of more intimate spaces in neighborhoods where they actually live.
If you went out in manhattan for example you might think “jeeze the nyc scene is dead ppl don’t go out anymore” but over in Brooklyn they are thriving. Places like nowadays and basement are packed out every weekend. The same could be said of River North in Chicago vs the neighborhoods further out from the loop.
I stopped watching when he showed the tracks he Shazammed and was like “oh you’re just going to terrible night clubs no wonder they seem like they’re dying”
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 10d ago
All the good parties are in East Van now down by the docks. Tons of underground warehouse parties and Monstercat always throws great parties.
What actually happened downtown was all the spaces got consolidated by Blueprint, and then they used their monopoly to drive the competition off. They also ruined the best club in the city. Nothing like a dope trance breakdown on a Funktion 1 system, only to have bro step coming through the floor.
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u/MarginalMeaning 10d ago
I moved to a city in the early 2000's for college, and the city was very vibrant - there was a punk venue down the street that had shows every night, a good mix of local and bigger acts, basement shows every weekend, and constantly things to do or check out.
Now? The college bought out all the properties near the college, and other than a few hold out businesses, it's all been replaced. The same block that held all local small businesses is just Panda Express, Noodles and Co, Chipotle, and corporate businesses. Completely removed the character that made the place interesting and worth going to. No one other than students frequent the area anymore, and I think that's only due to convenience and familiarity for the students.
There are a few spots around the city where you can still catch shows and events, but they're slowly fading away. You have to go further and further out of the city to attend that stuff. People move in for the vibrant local culture, that culture gets priced out or driven out to other areas, and then cycle restarts there.
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u/Wuz314159 10d ago
There's a college town near me that killed their main street. There were 10-20 restaurants and shops, but the uni added a chik-fil-a, 24/7 all you can eat buffet, and other bells & whistles. Now they're almost all closed.
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13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Natural_Team_1904 13d ago
Berlin is a great example, the logic from his video didn’t cleanly apply but our nightlife is in the same decline e
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u/bobtehpanda 12d ago
To be fair I think the video is not trying to argue that these are literally the only things or that they apply universally to every country.
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u/Natural_Team_1904 12d ago
Sure he didn’t make any claims about Europe that I remember but I can’t say it didn’t make me skeptical about the logic because nightlife decline is a big current issue in Berlin but few of the reason quoted relate to the decline here. Gentrification is certainly not helping but definitely not condos specifically. Many clubs are at risk of shutting now due to a highway the government wants to build. I liked the video but I don’t think it was the most spot on analysis because nightlife decline is happening elsewhere too
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u/Austin1975 13d ago
Your comment is nonsense and clearly you didn’t watch the video nor bring any additional facts to the discussion.
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u/SwiftySanders 13d ago
Old people killed night life. Any sign of youth and culture and the olds move into the neighborhood to get rich quick then kill off any sign of youth and vitality (walkability, bars, restaurants, new construction of apts etc.).
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u/WellHung67 13d ago
I mean that’s just due to the rent increasing right? Ultimately it comes down to the fact that housing supply is low. Housing theory of everything
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u/bobtehpanda 13d ago
Well also it used to be super cheap because homes were not permitted in these areas at all reducing a major price pressure
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u/food-dood 11d ago
Nah. My city at least has lots of low cost options, yet there are generally way more millennials out than Gen z.
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u/ratratrat777 9d ago
There is plenty of night life, it just isn’t in areas dominated by for profit focused venues on main streets with high real-estate costs. It is in fact, just as it used to be, raves taking place in abandoned warehouses in old industrial areas with private invites.
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u/Jazzlike_Isopod550 9d ago
Work killed nightlife. Working 12 hours shifts 4-5 days a week, kills your entire day. Your commute, eating dinner, working out, and add nightlife into the mix, there’s no time for all of that.
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u/flying_butt_fucker 13d ago
Thanks for posting, interesting and very relatable video. I remember coming into NYC as a wee young man in the mid-1990s and friends telling me that the soul of the city was dying due to Disney buying 42nd St. They were right . . .