How can you tell? This started off as a kind of joke – if there’s a point in a French town from which you can see three pharmacies, you’re in a Town of Substance. The French are keen on their pharmacies. The rule is the same for Belgium, BTW - except there, veterinary pharmacies count as well.
What about other places? For some reason I stuck to the formula “If you can see…” So in England I used to say, if there’s a point in a town where you can see three pawn shops, you’re in a Town of Substance – but that doesn’t seem to work any more. (Not because we’re going to hell in a handcart any slower, I think; I suspect it’s just a matter of the sector maturing and consolidating into larger pawn shops.)
We took a trip into town at the weekend and, killing time, I tried out a few new possibilities. A point in town where I can see… a betting shop, a vape/CBD shop and a tattoo parlour? Surprising result – I spent the next fifteen minutes (for the first and only time in my life) trying to find a place where I could get a tattoo. Fail.
Three vape shops? Yep
Three betting establishments? Hell, from one point I can see SIX. Too lax a test.
Three nail bars? Ran out of time.
A test doesn’t have to follow this formula – it could be anything, really. And we’ll need different test criteria in different places.
What’s your quick and handy test of a Town of Substance?
I think here in Boston that there’s a law requiring both a bank and an espresso bar at every street corner. To help with compliance, there are now bank branches with built-in espresso bars.
in southern California… its how many hybrid taqueria/burger joints with names like Louis or ,doublz … or straight-out causal Mexican places …like la taco inn la taqueria etc
In my area (and a lot of other areas) there seem to be a lot of places to buy mattresses. There is a retailer, Mattress Firm, that saturated the area with little stores – many of them across the street from each other.
They have since filled for bankruptcy protection and have close a bunch of stores. But what better sign of conspicuous consumption than 3 (or 4) mattress stores on a single corner?
The mattress store near my home seems to spend 3 quarters of the year having “going out of business” sales, and 1 quarter of the year having “grand opening” sales, so I would be skeptical about bankruptcy claims.
If there are 3 Starbucks within 3 blocks (it counts if one is inside a grocery store), you’re in a Town of Substance.
When we were in Oregon earlier this year, weed dispensaries seemed to be about as common as Starbucks on the East Coast. So I guess in that case you’d be in a Town of Controlled Substance.
