By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026If a street with a Gail's Bakery on it feels like every other street with a Gail's Bakery, that's because Gail's only puts its restaurants in places that have highly similar characteristics, measured to a high degree of accuracy and controlled by a narrow set of tolerances. 40/ 1453
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026In other words, every street that *feels* like it should have a Gail's will *eventually* get a Gail's, whereupon that street will feel even more like all the other streets that have a Gail's, because it will share one more common factor with those other streets (a Gail's). 41/ 1446
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026Leek points here to her earlier work on pub closures in the UK. The UK has experienced an epidemic of pub closures, with thousands of pubs disappearing since 2016: laurenleek.substack.com/p/britain-lo... 42/laurenleek.substack.comBritain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They Were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?How private equity reshaped the local and the postcode tool that shows the pubs most at risk. 2432