An apple a day may or may not keep the doctor away; but an Apple Inc. store in your neighborhood is definitely good for your community.
A feature on MarketWatch claims that Apple can be a terrific neighbor. How you ask?
Daniel Goldstein, a personal finance reporter for the publication, explains that to have a juggernaut like Apple in the neighborhood can be great for the retail scenario of the area. Goldstein cites several experts who believe that Apple has a unique retail "brick and mortar" success story in the era of online shopping.
"There's a stamp of approval that comes with an Apple Store. It says 'we've arrived' as a city or a shopping destination," James Dinegar, the executive director of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, told MarketWatch.
Apart from the goodwill that it brings to the neighborhood, it also improves employment. The publication notes that Apple didn't have to close down a single store for poor sales since its conception. The company employs 26,000 people in the U.S. stores and as it plans on expanding its retail portfolio, it is set to hire more people. Also, it cares for its employees and provides great compensation and healthcare benefits.
Plus, Apple (being apple) generates huge amounts in sales tax, which is great for the benefit of a community.
But there is a catch. There is always a catch. You don't choose Apple, Apple chooses you.
Usually, the iPhone manufacturer is super secretive about where it would open its next store and because they do their demographic study and other economic research, it could be hard to lure Apple into any random neighborhood.
"You have to make your best pitch and if you're a city or municipality you're lucky to get them," Eric Mallory of Eureka! Ventures told MarketWatch.
Also, Apple stores attract people in large numbers. It just pulled the curtain on its much-anticipated iWatch and iPhone 6, and people are queuing up in front of the stores to get their hands dirty in the new Apple merchandise.
Why are these stores such a hit? According to a GSM Arena blog, Apple's "play-with-everything philosophy" has helped popularize the stores.
Apple recently opened its first Norman Foster store in Istanbul, Turkey. It has also planned on building its largest ever flagship store in Dubai.
But would having an Apple store in the neighborhood, make it expensive? While that question is yet to be answered we do know what would make it expensive.
More recently, Curbed came up with this hilarious score card quiz where it enlists several factors that indicate towards gentrification - the process where the rich and their ways of living take over an area displacing poorer residents.
