30 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

I had the opportunity this week to meet a couple guys from Idaho, front-office staff that came up with the hockey team that was playing the S-Kings.

Anyway, they thought it was awesome that downtown we had just one McDonalds, and that was about it in terms of well-known brands. They thought it was cool, and unique among all the cities they had ever visited.

[Oxford Sutherland]

What about Subway, 7-11, GAP, Eddie Bauer, Starbucks...

[aastra]

Is there not a McDonald's in the Eaton's Centre?

Do other cities Victoria's size have an abundance of McDonald's downtown?

[gumgum]

Yes Victoria has a lot less fast food place d/t that most of the same size. This is espescially true when you compare it to the eastern part of the country.
People simply eat better out here.

[G-Man]

I agree when you go down to the states I see far more chain eat in restaurants as well (Tony Roma's, Denny's etc...)

[aastra]

Downtown?? I'm not getting it.

Very few McDonald's in downtown Vancouver, also.

[Holden West]

Fast food is a relatively small part of our urban fabric.

In the U.S. it is the urban fabric.

[aastra]

Why'd you post a picture of Hillside across from the mall? We're talking about downtown.

More research to follow.

[Mike K.]

The second downtown McDonald's location closed its doors about a year after it opened (Blanshard at Herald).

We certainly have more than enough Starbucks (not that I have a problem with them).

[G-Man]

Yup even in the downtown of US cities. In my summer trek across Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California this was one of the real eye openers for me. We are always saying that we are losing our cities to big corporations but we have gone no where near as far down the road as the americans. Victoria is also an anomoly in that it has more restaurants per captia than most other cities in North America.

[aastra]

I'd be interested to see what these downtown fast food outlets look like.

[Walter Moar]

I really hope that 7-11 on Government isn't a sign of things to come. We obviously don't need more trinket shops, but I would hate to see something like a fast food chain going into that part of town.

[VicHockeyFan]

Why is there not a Tim Hortons downtown? I never go there, but apparently everyone else in this country does. When I was in Ottawa a few years ago, there were lots downtown.

[Baro]

They wanted to put a TimHo where the new 7-11 is but the city didn't like it. Too low class. Not right for government street...

Then 7-11 came as the next proposal and the just gave up trying and let em put in. Timho was no happy.

Or that's at least what I heard from my friend who works there.

[VicHockeyFan]

They wanted to put a TimHo where the new 7-11 is but the city didn't like it. Too low class. Not right for government street...

Then 7-11 came as the next proposal and the just gave up trying and let em put in. Timho was no happy.

Or that's at least what I heard from my friend who works there.

I believe no rezoning was required whatsoever for the 7-11. No approval process at all. Remember Lowe saying he came upon it as it was opening, and it was a surprise to him.

[aastra]

I just did a quick search through the store locator at the McDonald's website. I didn't find any stories in downtown Boise. It was a hasty search, so maybe I missed some. Still, I'd be surprised if there was more than one or two.

I've noticed people who aren't from Victoria are often confused about what downtown Victoria actually is. Meaning: they don't realize it's the city's downtown area. Somewhere on the internet there's a traveller's impression of Victoria and he/she identifies the windows above downtown stores as the homes of Victorians, apparently unaware that 99% of the 350,000 people who live in Victoria don't live downtown at all. I once mentioned to some people I know from Vancouver that I was going shopping for Christmas presents "at the mall". They were surprised to learn there was a mall in Victoria. They hadn't seen a mall when they were there. Victoria only contains little shops, they were sure.

There was another fellow (a college/university instructor from Oklahoma or Iowa or somewhere, I believe) who had pictures of Victoria on his website. He made the observation that Victoria was such a "backwater" that it didn't even have a Wal-Mart. So I emailed him to tell him Victoria has two Wal-Marts. He said he would correct his site but I don't know if he ever did.

Anyway, here was this highly educated world traveller who couldn't comprehend the difference between downtown Victoria and the greater city. He didn't see a Wal-Mart at Douglas and Yates so he presumed Victoria didn't have any Wal-Marts.

I don't know why Victoria seems to confuse people in this way. I suspect it's because they've been prepped by the tourism propaganda to believe Victoria is a tiny little place, which means the end of the street over that way must be the end of the line. There's nothing beyond it. And since they never venture out of the tourist zones, they never confront reality.

[Number Six]

Well if a tourist considers a place to be a "backwater" because it doesn't have a Walmart then he only pretends to be a highly educated world traveller.

Some tourism propaganda is based on the official stats from the city / tourism officials (ie. ~80K population, etc.). Even the company I work for (based out of eastern Canada) described Victoria as "With a population of 74,000, and dotted with hanging flower baskets, Victoria is known as the City of Gardens". I pointed out the fact that this might create the wrong impression but it wasn't changed (I will have another go though!).

[aastra]

This fellow didn't believe Victoria was a backwater (his word) because it didn't have a Wal-Mart. Rather, this fellow believed Victoria was a backwater and therefore it didn't have a Wal-Mart.

You can be the most widely travelled person in the world and still think funny things because of the particulars of your initial frame of reference. In the midwest, any place that's any place has a Wal-Mart. No Wal-Mart was in evidence in downtown Victoria, and thus Victoria must not be any place.

As I'm apt to point out, many British Columbians believe Nanaimo is larger than Victoria because Nanaimo has a single tall building that happens to be taller than Victoria's tallest building. I knew someone who thought Vancouver was larger than Paris because Paris didn't have a lot of highrise buildings. On SSP you'll often see people referring to Victoria as isolated. I'm from Victoria, so I find a place like Ottawa to be isolated. Atlantic Canada is positively remote according to my frame of reference.

For the record, the site in question was http://www.greatmirror.com. I can't find the Wal-Mart bit so it looks like he fixed it when I notified him (November, 2004). The traveller in question is a professor of Geography at the University of Oklahoma. He's visited the following locales:

* Austria (Alpine)
* Bangladesh
* Belgium
* Brazil (Manaus)
* Burma / Myanmar
* Cambodia (Angkor)
* Canada (B.C.)
* China
* Egypt
* Germany
* Northern India
* Peninsular India
* Indonesia
* Israel
* Jerusalem
* Italy
* Japan
* Jordan
* Kenya
* Laos
* Malaysia
* Morocco
* Netherlands
* Oman
* Pakistan
* Philippines
* Poland
* Singapore
* South Africa
* Spain (Andalucia)
* Sri Lanka
* Sudan
* Switzerland
* Syria
* Thailand
* Trinidad
* Turkey
* United Arab Emirates
* United Kingdom
* U.S.: East
* U.S.: West
* U.S.: Oklahoma
* Uzbekistan
* West Bank
* Yugoslavia (Kosovo/a)

[Number Six]

I've always felt there is a subtle but important difference between a tourist and a traveller and that has everything to do with what they do with their frame of reference. Tourists take it on holiday with them and apply it to everthing they see. Travellers leave it at home and take what they find at face value. If they did the latter then someone from the midwest might question the assumption that "Wal-Mart = significant place".

[Caramia]

I really like that distinction between tourist and traveller.