Kevin's Weblog

Over at the Guardian, someone is upset that there’s 160 Starbucks within 5 miles of Central London. Part of his angst, I’m sure, comes from an inability to do basic mathematical estimation. You see, a circle with a radius of 5 miles covers just under 80 square miles. So, that’s two Starbucks per square mile. That doesn’t sound as scary, does it? I’m not sure about London, but 10 blocks per mile is a pretty standard city grid. 2 Starbucks per 100 city blocks. Over 99% of street corners do not have a Starbuck on them. For a dense metropolitan area, that’s really not so bad.

(Incidentally, I checked my address. There’s 66 Starbucks within 5 miles of us. I had to think for a minute about where the closest one was, and I’m completely at a loss for the second closest. But, I can probably come up with a dozen other coffeeshops within a reasonable walk.)