Lobster in a Bucket

I've been following this discussion, and I must say that I am against the Walmarts of the world. I'd rather not see the wealth, creativity, and vitality of local economies/communities sucked up and shipped out to Bentonville Arkansas.

I'd recommend Wendell Berry, who has some good thoughts on issues of economy and community. See the excert at: http://www.globalideasbank.org/BI/BI-123.HTML
A list of Berry resources can be found at;
http://www.brtom.org/wb/berry.html#work

As for New Urbanism, its not new and its not urban. The New urbanists try to recreate traditional forms of urban life--the way that cities were being built in the 19th century. So, its new only if one looks at it as a response to the last 60 years of suburban sprawl (auto-dependent; stripmall-dependent).

I say that New Urbanism isn't urban because, so far, New Urban communities have only been built on green fields (ie, they go out and cut down some trees, or bulldoze a farm and then build the subdivision there). These communities are located in much the same way that traditional suburbs are located. They go out from existing urban areas (like Birmingham) and then they buy cheap land, and build roads to back to the existing city. Its admirable, but we could do better.

An alternative to New Urbanism would be to re-develop/re-inhabit existing urban neighborhoods that were built to the standards the the new urbanists hope to achieve.

That said, I'd rather see a country of New Urban communities than a land dotted with big box retailers.

Alright, Ben, that stuff on New Urbanism was great, and I want to say some stuff about it as soon as I get done doing reading a couple articles, but...

I can't believe I'm defending Wal-Mart, but

I'm not sure the WalMart is the all consuming evil force that destroys community, at least not in every case. I just can't get over the fact that in tiny backhills towns in various places in the south, where they have no downtown stores or mom and pop places, Walmart fills some kindof social void where people congregate and be all community-like.

Now of course it's not like this everywhere, and of course this doesn't address the virtues and vices of the Walmart business practices, but it does mean that Walmart does do some communal good somewhere.

Fine, it might have "some communal good somewhere," but I'm more interested in here than "somewhere," and I don't think Walmart is doing much good here. We do have locally owned, locally operated, and locally flavored business establishments that we could be supporting.

Also, we have some really great places to gather and do public/community stuff. Places like Miller Plaza, Coolidge Park, the Walking Bridge, the RiverWalk, etc. have grown up out of Chattanooga's history and the creativity of its people. They are locally produced places that have been here a long time and they will continue to be here after the last Super Walmart gets blown over in a some mid-June tornado.

Walmarts and other supercenters are built to last between 5-10 years. Thats how long trends hold up on the national retail scene. Its painful to think about all those sheetmetal warehouse type buildings and acres of asphalt 10-15 years from now.

But, even with all my animosity toward supercenters I will grant that "somewhere" one might be doing some good for some folks.

Benny...all that anger...

But I feelya. I'm all about the homegrown chattanooga scene, if I sounded like I wasn't, I'm sorry. I'm rather envious of your job being right there sorta near the center of all the development. I drive April nuts as we cruise around town with my suggestion for this change here or that be renovated there bla bla bla. I'm all about the local folks doing the local thing...

If you check over on Mesh' blog, he has an e-mail from his Mom talking about what happened to the town when the super-walmart come in.

Another thing in favor of Wal-Mart and against the downtown area is that Benny seems to be forgetting the rednecks. Downtown seems to be a congregation area for decently affluent twenty/thirty-somethings and tourists, but not rednecks. Where are they supposed to go? How 'bout Wal-Mart? It's selling things they need at prices they can afford, something the "locally owned, locally operated, and locally flavored" businesses aren't. Greyfriars, Clumpies, and CBC are fine for people like us who can afford it and move in the class to which those establishments cater (the class that can afford to drop $8-10 on a meal every now and then), but the people who never went to college and working labor-type hourly-wage jobs don't really fit. And this is to say nothing of the nicer restaraunts downtown that we can't afford either. Wal-Mart gives them a place to go.

So, for that matter, does Blue Hole, near Soddy Daisy. Head there on a Saturday afternoon sometime and you'll see what I mean. Sheesh.

Ben without a doubt pre-existing infrastructure can be revitalized and be the context for new community life. This happens all the time. Manhattan in the late 70s. Chattanooga in the 80s. Most of the Atlantic Seaboard in the last 20 years. Downtown's are constantly going through these processes. New Urbanism is interesting to me because it's community building of a new type.

I think that the big reason suburbs worked in the 50s is the homogeniety of values in our culture at the time. Pretty much everyone had the same lifestyle. Everybody wanted to live pretty much the same way so community was easily creatable in the burbs, which were in turn economically expedient.

While you and I both feel very comfortable making new communities in old places (downtowns). One must recognize that they are themselves a value ghetto. The urban downtown value system is generally progressive, Gen-x or younger, and techno-savy. Not everyone is like this.

The New Urbanites are afluent people who want to stake out the own value ghetto and live there. Other groups have been doing this for a generation. Retirees and Homosexuals come to mind. Now traditionally the middle class white collar worker has been most representative and hence most captive to our culture/socio-economic structure. The fact that these very same people are beginning to escape the suburban order speaks to me that a paradigm shift in the factors that determine how people can choose to live in the air.

New Urbanism isn't just being used in the suburbs. Just as you suggested, Benny, it is also being used to redevelop existing parcels within cities. An excellent example of this is the Atlantic Station development in downtown Atlanta. The "city within a city" as they are calling it will be fully open next year it will be a true "mixed use" development of retail, office space, apartments, condos, and single family homes. It's not perfect -- one thing I noticed was that they are planning residences for 10,000 people and office/retail space for 30,000 employees, so people will still end up commuting there to work -- but overall I'm really impressed with this project.

I'm also impressed with Chattanooga for their efforts to revitalize downtown as a place to live, and not just a place to work and go out to eat. My only issue is that the housing development is all upscale. The new condos at 7th and Market start upwards of $200,000. I can't help but feel that there are young people who can't afford that but that "move in the class to which [downtown] establishments cater" and would enjoy living there. It's not as if $100,000 condos or townhomes would be bringing low class people downtown.