This ends up being one of the biggest reasons I enjoy living in Thailand. The unplanned layouts of cities makes for a colorful and convenient experience everywhere you go. Most every building in towns is at least two stories with shops under the tenant's quarters. You also can't forget about the prevalence of street carts for food and other small things. It's usually worth exploring alleys as there will be some curious little shop or restaurant. It doesn't match my you-must-have-a-car, strip-mall experience in the US.
You can contrast this to Laos where the LPDR has focused on zoning on new development. One example was ປາກເຊ, Pakse, where multilane roads were built whigh probably not be fully utilized for another 50 years. When you go to a residential area, there's much less businesses. From what I gathered, the government there was looking across the Mekong at it's developing sister country and is trying to 'correct' her mistakes when trying to emulate growth. However, there's much more beauty in allowing the natural chaos.
> Most every building in towns is at least two stories with shops under the tenant's quarters.
Compare this with modern (past five/ten years) architecture in Sweden: concrete, "modern" flats with zero expression that mostly are composed entirely of residential units. You might literally see a block of 8-10 buildings, maybe five stories high, that has one commercial unit at the very end of one of the buildings. It's ridiculous.
This type of architecture is killing newly produced areas completely unnecessarily, and I suspect it's because the one time income of selling a flat is preferred over the monthly income of renting to a business.
> This ends up being one of the biggest reasons I enjoy living in Thailand
Only visited briefly, but was going to post that they seem to get it right in Thailand. Some of the best restaurants are on the porch of someone's house, there's usually some kind of corner shop below most large buildings, most places are walkable or have adapted some kind of small persona transport.
You can contrast this to Laos where the LPDR has focused on zoning on new development. One example was ປາກເຊ, Pakse, where multilane roads were built whigh probably not be fully utilized for another 50 years. When you go to a residential area, there's much less businesses. From what I gathered, the government there was looking across the Mekong at it's developing sister country and is trying to 'correct' her mistakes when trying to emulate growth. However, there's much more beauty in allowing the natural chaos.