55 Comments:
Before someone else says it, a) there are of course several other factors and b) zip codes aren't perfect for demographics. But still...
»» Submitted by »»» rex at 11:49 PM on March 26
wow is this dumb. just wanted to make sure everybody knows that i think it's dumb
»» Submitted by theblvd at 1:16 AM on March 27
the whole internet is pretty dumb. but i sure do love the internet!
»» Submitted by »»» rex at 1:32 AM on March 27
Your post made me get off my ass on something that I had forgotten to add into the mix (crime rate), so I just threw that in there, and it changes the result rather dramatically. The Target on Broadway is now the worst score, with the one on Lake & Minnehaha coming in a close second. The one you mentioned, on the east side, now comes in third. Three cheers for dumb!
The internet steals your soul too. Which makes me glad I'm already hollow and dead inside.
»» Submitted by »»» wtfmn at 1:45 AM on March 27
The Northside Target has been closed for a really long time.
»» Submitted by »»» alexis at 3:46 AM on March 27
The Fridley Target has also been closed for a while, although not nearly as long as Northside.
»» Submitted by »»» alexis at 3:54 AM on March 27
Zipcode hardly works. I'm in the same zipcode as Lake of the Isles, which I imagine would skew our average income slightly.
»» Submitted by Kevin from Minneapolis at 7:31 AM on March 27
This is perverse. A bunch of web-savvy hipsters doing demographic research to see which Target score gets a cute moniker? To what end? So MNSpeak readers can stay the hell away from the Target where the poor, brown people go?
»» Submitted by P.Andrew at 7:42 AM on March 27
I have poor brown people friends, so its okay.
»» Submitted by A-Train at 8:16 AM on March 27
but i sure do love the internet!
Me too.
The internet steals your soul too. Which makes me glad I'm already hollow and dead inside.
Me too.
»» Submitted by »»» taylor at 8:48 AM on March 27
[This is really, really stupid.]
»» Submitted by mike s at 9:32 AM on March 27
We are all now dumber for having read this post.
»» Submitted by kyle at 10:13 AM on March 27
Strangely, the Targets I have been to are, for the most part, cleaner, better run, have a more helpful staff, and considerably less trashy customers than msot of the WalMarts I've been to in the suburbs.
How ghetto.
»» Submitted by »»» hipmn at 10:33 AM on March 27
Southside Des Moines, traditionally heavily populated by Italians, has a Targhetti.
»» Submitted by »»» cjc at 10:36 AM on March 27
The Polish have Kowalski's!
»» Submitted by »»» taylor at 10:50 AM on March 27
This is perverse. A bunch of web-savvy hipsters doing demographic research to see which Target score gets a cute moniker? To what end? So MNSpeak readers can stay the hell away from the Target where the poor, brown people go?
No, no, no.
The hipsters are all listed in Mpls/St. Paul Magazine, not here.
It's cool that those Targets actually do take on the feel of the areas they are in. The demographic of the neighborhood is stronger that the corporate power of brand image.
»» Submitted by »»» bradles at 11:05 AM on March 27
This is awesome! Nice work magnetbox.
Now if we could just get the trolls off this site we'd all be happy!
»» Submitted by »»» moe at 11:22 AM on March 27
No kidding. Accusing Ben of being a hipster -- or, implicitly, a racist -- is just about the craziest thing I've ever heard. Jesus, people.
»» Submitted by »»» rex at 11:36 AM on March 27
People expressing an opinion are trolls, Moe? Grow the f&$# up and accept that your opinion isn't the only one.
»» Submitted by James at 11:43 AM on March 27
I'd like to see a similar graphing of stores like Kowalski's, Lunds and Byerly's.
»» Submitted by Kevin from Minneapolis at 11:46 AM on March 27
I don't know Ben, Rex, but I think there's something racist about this. Ghetto, of course, refers to the long-ago Italian island where Jews were corralled, but now, of course, it refers to an ethnic pocket and, in more recent folksonomy, a group of blacks. So Target stores in poor neighborhoods are therefore black and "ghetto." That's messed up. But whatever. Spending the time to crunch numbers about which Target store is in which poor neighborhood seems misplaced: is he doing this so we can all guffaw about the "accurate" use of an epithet, or is there any other redeeming quality to all this... other than the amusement of the technorati? And, Moe, as James suggests, I'm not a troll. Just somebody who thinks our language shapes our behavior.
»» Submitted by Noam. at 11:45 AM on March 27
Well, this made me laught, at least.
»» Submitted by trigonalmayhem at 11:52 AM on March 27
The "winning" Targhetto at 701 W Broadway has been a Cub foods for over a year now. Cubhetto?
»» Submitted by »»» navin at 12:00 PM on March 27
Okay, I'm checking off "ghetto" from the list of words I can use anymore. Got it.
How retarded.
Oh wait.
(How do you people navigate society? The Daily Show must make you ill.)
Anyway, I also would like to see the same thing applied elsewhere. Here's one with fast food -- no Twin Cities data, but check out Chicago!
»» Submitted by »»» rex at 12:19 PM on March 27
rex: Accusing Ben of being a hipster -- or, implicitly, a racist -- is just about the craziest thing I've ever heard. Jesus, people.
Oh, well, if he's Rex's friend Ben, then everything must be cool....
Rex, you would be a lot more effective in these discussions if you stopped whinging about the PC thought police and tried to actually formulate an argument about how there's nothing plausibly offensive about using "household income data, average home sale price," and crime data to compute where the "ghetto" might be, and then making light of it.
»» Submitted by mike s at 12:25 PM on March 27
You mean, like what urban planners, city officials, zoning officials, and politicians do every day -- analyze data to compute socio-economic regions?
I give up. I'm apparently dragging good people like Ben down for merely knowing them. I'm officially removing my own site from the RSS reader.
»» Submitted by »»» rex at 12:40 PM on March 27
If plugging data into a computer is racist... we've got big problems. How people choose to use the data determines whether they are racist or not.
I can see where people would take issue to the "targhetto" reference... but that's been a part of the pop culture lexicon for awhile now. I think it was creating and thoughtful to plug in real data and analyze it. Not to mention thought-provoking.
Rex, urban planners, city officials, zoning officials, and politicians tend to use their analysis for useful purposes -- or at least not to make light of (for lack of a better phrase) communities that already have obvious problems (e.g., low household income, low average home sale price, high crime). I think this project has some potential, except that it has been presented in a glib way, that doesn't seem to consider the real-world impact of the data it's using.
»» Submitted by mike s at 12:43 PM on March 27
Are you people for real?
Some people are devoid of humor.
There is little that can be done to change that.
»» Submitted by Mpls Simpleton at 1:04 PM on March 27
I love humor.
»» Submitted by »»» taylor at 1:38 PM on March 27
Humor usually relates to something funny.
»» Submitted by kate at 1:39 PM on March 27
Comedy also relates to something funny. I also love comedy.
»» Submitted by »»» taylor at 1:56 PM on March 27
The "winning" Targhetto at 701 W Broadway has been a Cub foods for over a year now. Cubhetto?
That would be the "Up in da Cub," not to be confused with the "Rainbow Foods Coalition."
For what it's worth, the word "ghetto" was bowdlerized from the MNspeak lexicon last December, so let's move on to something else superficially offensive, like the Walocaust.
»» Submitted by Tate at 1:52 PM on March 27
What would make this project even more valuable is to do a basic price comparisson on various common goods as Target does price variations based on store location.
The word we're looking for with all this fun data is psychographics or cluster marketing. Variations of this are used by everyone. Everyone meaning "the man".
»» Submitted by Saloth Sar at 1:58 PM on March 27
The Broadway Targhetto that Alexis mentioned is closed is actually a Cubghetto. Ah, Navin beat me to it.
The Lake & Minnehaha Target is MY target, and I'm not poor or brown. It seems like an equal opportunity retail establishment to me. And are there really demographic differences in toilet paper and laundry detergent?
There remain such things as irony and satire in this world. Or at least I thought so. But I'll be the first to say I have no idea if the intent of the map involved irony or satire...or racism for that matter.
Here's a suggestion: Why don't we ASK Ben himself what his intent was? Hmm? If it was meant to be funny (which is how I took it), then by God we've already sucked the air out of the room, so the punchline might as well be explained.
»» Submitted by »»» wtfmn at 1:53 PM on March 27
Good point, Saloth Sar.
Another interesting thing to look at would be differences in the products offered at various Targets. I go to three Targets (which is sort of odd, because I don't even own a car) and there seem to be significant differences in theproducts sold at each.
Another retail mapping idea: If so-called hood stores could be defined, identified, and plotted, it would be interesting to try to figure out their relationship with area crime rates. (Yes, I am aware the monicker isn't far from "Targhetto," but this slang seems specific to how stores do business, not where they're located.)
»» Submitted by mike s at 2:26 PM on March 27
We can't forget Tar-zhay Boutique (Edina-Southdale location) and Tar-Gay (St. Louis Park location).
»» Submitted by »»» DaveM at 2:40 PM on March 27
We all know Rex took a job at Microsoft, so he's probably not slummin' it in Seattle. Where the rest of y'all live? In the "ghetto"? Given my proximity to the closed Targhetto, apparently I do (15th and Penn N). How depressing...
»» Submitted by JT at 2:51 PM on March 27
Is it safe to say Sambo's is out of the running for best breakfast?
»» Submitted by Tate at 2:46 PM on March 27
Man, I miss Sambo's.
»» Submitted by »»» hipmn at 2:59 PM on March 27
I just watched My Breakfast with Blassie which was shot at Sambo's. Let's talk about the misunderstood comedy of Andy Kaufman, how 'bout?!
»» Submitted by »»» bradles at 3:02 PM on March 27
He was more funny in theory than practice. He had a very sadistic sensibility, with the audience as his victims. I'd rather talk about Michael O'Donoghue, who managed to be a sadist AND funny -- a tough trick.
»» Submitted by »»» hipmn at 3:12 PM on March 27
I never found O'Donoghue funny, just mean. Of course, he was a key player in shaping the tone of SNL. I haven't seen much of his performances. What are some highlights?
Kaufman was hilarious to me. Everything he did.
»» Submitted by »»» bradles at 3:25 PM on March 27
Which SLP Target is the gay one? I shop at both and have never noticed overt gayness at either. Then again, I'm not sure what to look for. Is there a special gay department?
If it's the Knollwood location, it's about to become a Super Tar-Gay!
»» Submitted by SLP at 3:50 PM on March 27
I thought St. Louis Park was stereotyped as jewish, not gay. Maybe Tarcheapo would be better. As long as we're at it, how about the Super Target in Chaska be Tarcaucasio or Tarsnobo (pronounced Tar-snob-O).
»» Submitted by Kevin from Minneapolis at 4:48 PM on March 27
Wouldn't that make the Target in SLP "TarYid?"
»» Submitted by »»» richg at 5:29 PM on March 27
No. Jews are already targets.
»» Submitted by »»» hipmn at 6:29 PM on March 27
Heh.
»» Submitted by »»» hipmn at 6:37 PM on March 27
Nice mashup Ben! It would be interesting to add more data to the equation and see what filters out.
Who the fuck is Ben?
»» Submitted by A-Train at 11:37 AM on March 30
It's not just black people who live near and shop at Targhetto. Plenty of white people live nearby and frequent the place just as much.
To me, Targhetto means a Target store in a poor neighborhood, not necessarily black. But it probably wouldn't have gotten the name Targhetto if the store wasn't completely trashed.
That's the point I think he's making about Targhetto. The stores are trashed by people who are messy themselves. End of story.
»» Submitted by Disco at 2:30 PM on April 24
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