“…big box stores like Wal-Mart, by forcing small retailers to diversify, make a valuable and necessary contribution to the economy.”

If instead of the usual boarded up storefronts, you do see small diversified retailers, you can be sure you are in a wealthy or touristy area. Restaurants, galleries, gimcrackery. Nothing wrong with any of it but if you live there and you want to buy some groceries, not gourmet treats, you better have a car so you can drive to the big supermarket. If you need a quart of paint or a washer to fix your faucet forget about a neighborhood hardware store! Kill the morning with a drive to Home Depot.

That is a disfunctional local retail economy.

I was discouraged by the picture and the summary in the post above: “Is there an upside to strip mall sprawl? Some believe big box stores like Wal-Mart, by forcing small retailers to diversify, make a valuable and necessary contribution to the economy.”

But I certainly did not mean to criticize streetsblog.net overall, and I am glad to see this feature, as I said.

We will keep letting you know what highlighted on the site, and it will be updated at least once a weekday. It features a streaming feed from more than 120 blogs as well as the featured stories.

The story referenced today does actually discuss conversion of shopping malls into residential/retail developments; the post from Texas talks about how to encourage developers to create connected streets in subdivisions through pricing. So they might interest you after all.

We’re aiming for a variety of topics every day and over the course of any given week. Hope you’ll find it worth a click.

Sarah Goodyear
Editor
Streetsblog Network