Today, much to my horror, I discovered that there are exactly 47 Starbucks locations within 5 MILES of my house in North Seattle. Now, many of us have been complaining about the rampant expansion of Starbucks here in Seattle for quite a while, so this may not come as much surprise. Upon further examination, I realized that most of the fealing of horror that I’m experiencing comes not from the huge number itself, but from the fact that I’m not at all surprised by this finding.
People across the rest of the country are coming to this same conclusion. Find your own Starbucks density here.

For some comparison, there are 99 stores within a 5 mile radius of my old apartment on Capitol Hill. Even this figure pales in comparison to some of the major urban areas.

While I’m generally in favor of capitalism and agree with most of the tenants of a free market economy, this is just beyond crazy. I think someone just needs to tell the world that there is better coffee out there than Starbucks.

Technorati Tags: Capitalism, coffee, Tycoon, urban jungle