Big Box and Little Town
I’m in Vancouver on vacation, marvelling at the head-scratching landscape of urban planning which reveals itself.
In this corner, wearing green hemp trunks, we have new bicycle routes sprouting up with dedicated traffic lights, more roundabouts to calm neighbourhood car traffic, more parks, more cafés, less smog, and, in general, a noticeable awareness of civic growth which permeates the population.
In the other corner, wearing an oil-stained rag, we have a proposal to build a new $600 million bridge to cross from the distant far reaches of yet-to-be-suburbia over the Fraser River to reach the ever-expanding city. And another proposal to double the capacity of an existing bridge. Meanwhile, a proposal to build a rapid transit system extending from downtown to the airport and the southern suburbs, which should have been built decades ago, languishes in the planning ether while bureaucrats and politicians argue over who will pay if it costs “too much”.
The brilliance of urban planners never fails to amaze me. I just wish the idiocy of them didn’t do it as well.
It’s difficult to resist the call of the Suburb with its greener grass, its just-near-the-woods proximity, and its build-it-and-they-will-come big box retailing. However, I believe the shoppers at Wal-Mart and Winners/TJ Maxx have made a terrible miscalculation as they search for that amazing bargain while driving in gridlock to the closest “business park”. I believe that patronizing these establishments will ensure the death of small business retail and the sense of community that it fosters. Do we really want to live in cities where the only place to shop is a giant warehouse under buzzing fluorescent light? Where the only way to D.I.Y. is to hire a stockbroker to control your investments?
As usual, urban curmudgeon James Kunstler gives us plenty of reasons to say no and explains how it is coming to be nonetheless.
Previously: Golly, Professor Peabody
Subsequently: Trends to End
Comments
I share your amazement at the ding-dongedness of urban planning in recent decades. There is the aesthetic price, of course - how depressing these one-storey strip malls and their accompanying acres of treeless, concrete parking areas are! Does anyone, and I mean anyone, actually find these places pleasant?
And there is also the life- and character-sucking nature of strip malls to contend with. Most evil of all is Wal-Mart, especially on the small town. Here in Roanoke, Alabama (pop. 6000), the strip malls on the bypass have virtually destroyed the businesses in the old, quaint, and pleasant downtown. It is bad enough that the area is now completely dead and that so many long-standing operations have been and are being terminated.
But the local Wal-Mart was not satisfied. It recently closed only to reopen about half a mile down the bypass as a super duper Wal-Mart, which includes just about every product and service that one could need. The effect is that even more businesses - those that are on the bypass - will also be forced to close. Soon there will be nothing but this gigantic Wal-Mart, the final nail in the coffin of the remaining shreds of individual character this town once held.
— ERK | Jul. 23, 2004 — 7 PM