Wealthy blithering idiot David Jones Sr. knows "a pit of mediocrity" when he sees it -- most often in the morning while shaving.

Times like these are when I usually suggest eating the rich, but I’m not sure the vindaloo sauce is strong enough to make the rich remotely palatable. Stewing in Jones' own senility sounds like a better recipe, anyway.

SCALA founder blames ‘self-appointed busybodies’ for killing West End Walmart, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)

During a speech to the Rotary Club of Louisville, David Jones Sr. blamed “faceless boards,” “so-called preservationists” and “self-appointed busybodies” for killing a proposed Walmart Supercenter at 18th and Broadway.

He also listed the death of the project as a reason he, PNC Bank Regional President Chuck Denny and Tandem PR CEO Sandra Frazier formed the Steering Committee for Action on Louisville’s Agenda (SCALA), which has faced backlash after Insider Louisville revealed its existence.

They “were disappointed that leadership failed to allow Walmart to build a large and greatly needed store on the corner of 18th and Broadway,” said Jones Sr., founder of Humana.

Walmart had planned to build a 154,722-square-foot store with a garden center, deli, pharmacy and optometrist in West Louisville, but the company backed out of the development after a lawsuit was filed by individuals and groups who opposed the design of the Walmart, arguing it did not fit the urban neighborhood. Walmart wanted to build the store back from the street with a 620-space parking lot between the front door and the street, but those who filed the lawsuit wanted it to abut the sidewalk.

“I just can’t tell you how disappointed I was at our lack of capability to allow Walmart. They would have provided 300 jobs, affordable food and other things, but most importantly, hope,” he said. “That disturbed me so much that I said to my friends ‘Why don’t we put together a group and see if there’s any way to get out of this pit of mediocrity.’ ”

Councilwoman Barbara Sexton Smith, D-4, asked Jones Sr. during the Rotary event if he saw hope for the area surrounding 18th and Broadway given that the YMCA of Greater Louisville and Passport Health plan to invest millions of dollars in developments there.

“Not nearly as much hope as I had when the Walmart was going there,” Jones Sr. said.

Strong Towns Week: A hat trick by Marohn (autocentrism's cost, invasive semi-trailers and insidious Wal-Mart).

I'm a member of Strong Towns, and suggest you take advantage of this week's "greatest hits" output ...

This week, we are focusing on exposing new people to the Strong Towns message. That’s why we’re posting some of our best content of all time and asking YOU to share it. We’ve set a big goal — doubling our weekly audience — and we need your help to do it.

Sharing our content is one small but vital step you can take to help build a world of a million people who care about our mission. If this article inspires you, please take a moment to share it with someone else.

... to familiarize yourself with the organization's mission:

"For the United States to be a prosperous country, it must have strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. Enduring prosperity for our communities cannot be artificially created from the outside but must be built from within, incrementally over time."

Here are three conceptually linked articles by the organization's founder.

1. "A simple comparison of traditional & auto-oriented development styles. Guess which is more financially productive."

THE COST OF AUTO ORIENTATION, by Charles Marohn

In the United States we've spent the last sixty years reconfiguring our public spaces to accommodate the automobile. The built-in assumption of this approach, especially when it comes to commercial property, is that the more cars driving by the better. In our haste to modernize, what we've overlooked is the lower return on investment we get from this approach, even under ideal conditions. Today we need the humility to acknowledge that our ancestors, who built in the traditional style, may have known what they were doing after all.

2. "No, semis are not a valid reason to build dangerously wide streets."

TRACTOR TRAILER TRADEOFF, by Charles Marohn

... During Big Box Stores Week, I received the proverbial semi-trailer comment. Chuck, I agree that we need to look at street design, but we can only change things so much because we need to accommodate semis.

So logical yet so wrong.

.. Efficiency is one of the core values of our economic system. We don’t care if we’re doing the right thing or not – or, more precisely, our economists assume we are – so long as we do it more and more efficiently. Hauling one big load of merchandise is far more efficient than hauling multiple, smaller loads. Thus whoever can configure their operation to take advantage of this efficiency should win, right?

3. "If cities did the math on these kind of developments, not another one would ever be built."

THE WALMART TROPHY, by Charles Marohn

Walmart builds cheap buildings in order to sell Americans cheap stuff. Joe Minicozzi has documented brilliantly how, the cheaper the store and the more land it wastes, the lower the taxes. The Walmart land development model has taken the concept of "buying in bulk" and applied it to the land in your city. Their goal -- lower every cost -- is directly at odds with the financial health of your community ...

... Walmart buildings are designed to last 15 to 20 years. Simply the city's commitment to maintain the necessary infrastructure extends generations beyond that, let alone the cost of policing and other needed services. If cities did the math on these kind of developments, not another one would ever be built.

Dunman: "Development without preservation isn’t a risk worth taking."

If Louisville is ranked the 11th-poorest city in the country, what does it say about a place like New Albany, which for decades has happily agreed to be the low-rent whipping boy of the Louisville metro area in exchange for reliable slumlord campaign contributions and extractive heavy industry "development" models?

(An aside: As I write, the city council is about to trumpet the "reform" of our building codes, a revision that will not include rental property registration, with both major parties evidently agreeing that it would be far too expensive to raise the bar, when a lowered bar affords so many practical campaign donations)

Back to Dunman's essay. It's like we said during the time of Mainland's River View project: Who's going to buy the pricey condos?

Couldn't the same money be spread out between historic rehabs and selected infill, and achieve better results?

Wouldn't the millennials be more likely to live in more affordably priced properties in neighborhoods near downtown?

Of course, they'd be more inclined to do so if we put the genuine clamp on slumlords and made our streets walkable and bikeable -- but 79-year-olds like Irv Stumler, extractors like Tiger Trucking and rental property owners like mayoral candidate Kevin Zurschmiede) stand in the way of rationality ... don't they?

So, why do we tolerate them?

Joe Dunman: Development without preservation isn’t a risk worth taking, by Joe Dunman (Insider Louisville)

... Louisville is not a rich city, after all. In fact, it was recently ranked the 11th-poorest city in the country. Its young professionals are few in number and aren’t, as a group, paid very handsomely. And housing is not so limited or overpriced that quality apartments, condos, and even single-family homes can’t be found for affordable prices very close to a downtown that remains mostly a daytime destination for white-collar commuters.

New residential developments like the proposed condo building in Butchertown are risky endeavors. And without preservation restrictions, there is a danger that historic structures will be lost to new projects that end up vacant or underutilized if demand for pricey condos and studio apartments fails to fully materialize.

Invasive species, Volume the Infinity: "Walmart proves once again the rules don’t apply to them."

Maybe Joe Dunman can move to New Albany and be mayor?

Joe Dunman: Walmart proves once again the rules don’t apply to them (Insider Louisville)

Last week, the Louisville Metro Planning Commission approved a proposed Walmart store to fill a large open lot at Broadway and 18th Street. To do so, the commission had to waive some of Louisville’s urban planning rules because Walmart wants to build its store with a typical suburban-style setback and a gigantic front parking lot in a “Traditional Marketplace Corridor Form District.” The rules require buildings to be constructed close to the street in such an area to promote the “traditional visual character, function, and identity” among other important goals.

Opponents of Walmart’s plan sensibly argued that buildings oriented to the street — not set far behind giant parking lots — are safer and more pedestrian-friendly. They’re also aesthetically pleasing and promote the positive urban experience people get on streets like Bardstown Road in the Highlands, as opposed to desolate hellscapes like Preston Highway, the likes of which writer James Kunstler famously described as “the geography of nowhere.”

But if Walmart simply wasn’t willing to move its store closer to the street and put parking behind, preservationists led by Steve Porter suggested an alternative plan that would allow other buildings to be placed street-side, with a parking lot between them and the big box store. A compromise where both the city and the store could get what they want.

Walmart and the Planning Commission were in no mood to compromise, however. The commission’s 8-1 vote in favor of the giant retailer’s suburban-style plan proved once again that what Walmart wants, Walmart gets.

Big box dry humping in Sellersburg: In TIF poker, does a major unnamed retailer trump a minor named retailer?

Geez, this one's so breathless I could have sworn it was a banner at Insider Louisville.

It appears these professional, rotating development "pros" all learn to speak a variant of nonsense language: It's the best thing since sliced bread, but we can't talk about it too loudly ... and boy, you'll want to erect a plaque to us when it's finished, but seriously, let's not get our hopes up and all -- and meanwhile you know I like my fluffing slow and easy. 

Big Sales Pitch: Sellersburg hopes to attract major unnamed retailer, by Gary Popp (Alabama Business Fluffer)

SELLERSBURG — Sellersburg officials are working to bring a big-box store to the town, but they aren’t disclosing the name of the retailer as of yet.

Still in the early phases of attracting the business, the Sellersburg Redevelopment Commission met Wednesday to assess their next steps in getting the unnamed business to establish itself in the town’s tax increment financing district.

Mike Hostetler, the redevelopment commission’s president, said the project will be the largest commercial boost in Sellersburg’s history if it comes to fruition.

“There is nothing that can compare to this,” he said.

Hostetler said negations are ongoing with the retailer, and that is better for the community to not be privy to the identity of the business, until plans have further progressed.

“The negotiations are not completed yet, so [there] would be no purpose in giving somebody a name, and then it may not happen,” he said.

The initial public reaction is predictable: WE NEED THIS NEW PLACE TO SHOP DAMN IT BUT FIRST BUILD US MORE ROADS DAMN IT.

Then there's this.

It's a WalMart proposed for the west end in Louisville, and provides insight into pesky little things like principles, these being mere disposable flotsam for the gibberish-speaking economic dishevelment "pros." NPP provided these thoughts prior to last week's hearing.

Neighborhood Planning & Preservation (NPP) Kentuckiana

WALMART (Proposed for 18th & Broadway) CASE HEARD TODAY

NPP REQUESTS PLANNING COMMISSION DEFER DECISION on
CASE "14DEVPLAN1036and1400STREETS1004"

 ... NPP continues to be concerned about the lack of public input on this project thus far. Though we feel a Walmart does not represent the best use for this space, we have supported neighborhood efforts for an urban design--which could meet a broader range of needs in a community that has been neglected and undermined by needless destruction and sub-par development. Walmart has responded with urban designs in other markets (e.g. Washington D.C. and Chicago). Why not Louisville? There are many legitimate concerns about imposing a suburban design in an urban setting. Yet, there were no opportunities to discuss the ramifications on public safety and access among the public. Since taxpayers have footed the hefty bill for most of what has transpired at 18th and Broadway, decisions made behind closed doors suggests a willfully exclusionary process that was not in the public's best interest. The lack of accountability here is troubling.

That being said, we urge the committee to heed the staff report and not claims of economic benefits of said project. The short and long term benefits are debatable and should be addressed in a public forum---not solely among parties having a vested interest in this development. We would also ask the Commission to defer this case and instruct the developer to return with a new plan consistent with the neighborhood guidelines.

The purpose of the land use codes and staff evaluations is to protect communities from the profit agenda of a few, who may find it more convenient to ignore the community's heritage or concerns. We urge the Commission insist our guidelines be followed. Please compel the interested parties to return with plans complying with the standards before moving forward. There is still time to demonstrate a respect for our community that has been lacking to date. In doing so, we believe a win-win is possible for all concerned.

Perhaps miraculously ...

Zoning board delays West End Walmart, by Sheldon Shafer (C-J)

Metro planners delayed acting Thursday on a controversial plan for a Walmart superstore at Broadway and Dixie Highway and strongly implied they want the chain to redesign the site to put the store closer to Broadway and to reduce the amount of parking.

Kevin Thompson, an Indianapolis-based public affairs director for Walmart, said Walmart will consider a redesign. But Walmart officials asked the Metro Planning Commission to vote on the plan that had been submitted and said alternative designs had been thoroughly "vetted" and rejected —mainly because other layouts would be less efficient for operations and would likely reduce profits.

And we all know how important those profits are to the lives of ordinary Americans -- including those clamoring for more roads to reach WalMart.

The Walton Family: America’s New Robber Barons

Walmart’s ruling family, the Waltons, has more wealth than 42% of American families combined.

It's enough to give you an apartment complex, or not.

I have an idea for the embittered developer Thieneman: C'mon, cheer up!

Isn't it about time for the Wal-Mart on Grant Line to threaten departure from within the city limits, unless their first decade's abatements are renewed, enhanced and super-sized? Swoop in there and grab 'em. That'll show those pesky neighborhood residents. Now, Highlander Point may be a bit further than ten miles as the crow flies, but the distance sounds about right for a typical Wal-Mart lateral move.

Of course, not everyone gulps down the Wal-Mart brand of Kool-Aid, but hey, I bet the Seabrook and Bush kings of comedy team would be right on top of it. Then we'd have a couple zillion unused square feet of building opposite Community Park for growing hydroponic hops and looking dilapidated.

Is 19 acres of Knobs enough concrete for a real Wal-Mart?

Go big or go home, Don. My commission check goes to the usual post office box. Cheers.

Developer withdraws zoning request for Floyd County apartment complex, by Grace Schneider (C-J)

A developer Tuesday night withdrew his zoning change request to allow a 152-unit apartment complex near Highlander Point.

Instead, Donald Thieneman said that he expects to focus on using the 19 acres for a commercial venture. “It’s disappointing,” Thieneman said.

He didn’t give a reason for pulling the application as he stood before the Floyd County commissioners minutes earlier, but the announcement drew a burst of applause from several dozen people who’d shown up to register their opposition.

Embittered Knobs developer Thieneman succinctly encapsulates community spirit.

Being rejected by the county sprawl commission is a headline itself, but Don Thieneman takes it to a whole new level:

“It’s disappointing. I guess we’ll have to put in a Super Walmart.”

Atta boy, Don. Let's do what's best for our community.

Plan Commission rejects apartment rezoning near Knobs' Highlander Point, by Grace Schneider (Courier-Journal)

The Floyd County Plan Commission voted Wednesday night to forward an unfavorable recommendation on a proposed rezoning for an apartment complex near Highlander Point center in Floyds Knobs.

Score it a victory for a group of residents who’d spent recent months mounting a campaign against the plans to build 152 apartments northwest of the U.S. 150 and Old Vincennes Road and a defeat for developer Don Thieneman.

Although the matter goes now to the Floyd County commissioners, most are betting they will uphold the advisory recommendation during an election year.

Millions of zombie shoppers can't be wrong: Thanksgiving retailing and the intrusion of consumerism.

I'm unsure what can be done when the sheep willingly embrace the instruments of their prospective slaughter.

Protests mark Black Friday's creep into Thanksgiving (Al Jazeera)

Decision by large retailers to open on Thanksgiving has been attacked by those wanting a consumerism free day

... The decision by some retail giants to open on Thanksgiving has been greeted by alarm by those who resent the intrusion of consumerism on a day that traditionally has been about bringing family together. Workers planned petitions and protests around the country to coincide with early opening hours.

Walmart has been the biggest target for protests against holiday hours. Most of the company's stores are open 24 hours, but the retailer is starting its sales events at 6 p.m. on Thursday, two hours earlier than last year.

The issue is part of a broader campaign against the company's treatment of workers that's being waged by a union-backed group called OUR Walmart, which includes former and current workers. The group is staging demonstrations and walkouts at hundreds of stores around the country on Friday.

Today's reading for CM Blair: "Wal-Mart: An economic cancer on our cities."

You can lead a banker to information, but you can't always make him read. Let's hope this is an exception. Scott: When you're finished, can you pass on this link to David Duggins? I think he needs to read it, too. Thanks.

Wal-Mart: An economic cancer on our cities, by Charles Montgomery (Salon)

In Asheville, N.C., a dense downtown generated jobs and tax revenue and restored the city's soul

Excerpted from "Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design”

Most of us agree that development that provides employment and tax revenue is good for cities. Some even argue that the need for jobs outweighs aesthetic, lifestyle, or climate concerns—in fact, this argument comes up any time Walmart proposes a new megastore near a small town. But a clear-eyed look at the spatial economics of land, jobs, and tax regimes should cause anyone to reject the anything-and-anywhere-goes development model. To explain, let me offer the story of an obsessive number cruncher who found his own urban laboratory quite by chance.

Kunstler: "There will be no new chain store brands to replace the dying ones. That phase of our history is over."

Here's another commentary you'll not be reading at the "local" chain newspaper.

The Era of Giant Chain Stores Is Over -- And They've Ruined America, by James Howard Kunstler (Business Insider via Huff Post Small Business)

... The chain stores won not only because they flung money around -- sometimes directly into the wallets of public officials -- but because a sizeable chunk of every local population longed for the dazzling new mode of commerce. "We Want Bargain Shopping" was their rallying cry.

The unintended consequence of their victories through the 1970s and beyond was the total destruction of local economic networks, that is, Main Streets and downtowns, in effect destroying many of their own livelihoods. Wasn't that a bargain, though?

Despite the obvious damage now visible in the entropic desolation of every American home town, WalMart managed to install itself in the pantheon of American Dream icons, along with apple pie, motherhood, and Coca Cola. In most of the country there is no other place to buy goods (and no other place to get a paycheck, scant and demeaning as it may be). America made itself hostage to bargain shopping and then committed suicide. Here we find another axiom of human affairs at work: People get what they deserve, not what they expect. Life is tragic.

The older generations responsible for all that may be done for, but the momentum has now turned in the opposite direction. Though the public hasn't groked it yet, Wal-Mart and its kindred malignant organisms have entered their own yeast-overgrowth death spiral. In a now permanently contracting economy the big box model fails spectacularly. Every element of economic reality is now poised to squash them.

Plaid Friday 3: "Americans have chosen cheap ... (and) it's led to a cycle of impoverishment."

Something to consider while you're standing in line.

Who's Really to Blame for the Wal-Mart Strikes? The American Consumer, by Jordan Weissmann (The Atlantic)

... It would be a mistake, however, to think of this simply as a clash over one company. Rather, it's symptomatic of forces Wal-Mart helped set in motion and now shape our economy in fundamental way. It's about big box retail's refusal to pay a decent wage. It's about the way we've stacked the deck against unions. And it's about the choices we make as consumers.

"Stand with Striking Wal-Mart Workers."

At The Nation: Josh Eidelson: The True Power of Walmart Workers

As shoppers battle for discounted flat-screen TVs this Black Friday, Walmart workers will be fighting for a living wage. Employees at 1,000 Walmart stores across the country are planning to strike on one of the megastore’s most profitable days. “There’s the potential to cut into Walmart’s brand in a permanent way,” says Nation writer Josh Eidelson, who has been covering the Walmart strikes since the beginning. He stopped by MSNBC’s The Ed Show to discuss the potential power of the worker walkout, and Walmart’s illegal efforts to stop it.

Rock on: "America’s biggest retailer may be in for an unexpectedly painful holiday season."

The Hostess Twinkie extinction stories are mere empty calories compared with the real action. Bloomberg Businessweek provides the overview.

Labor

Wal-Mart Workers' Black Friday Strike

By Elizabeth Dwoskin on November 16, 2012

 

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America’s biggest retailer may be in for an unexpectedly painful holiday season. Protesting low wages, spiking health care premiums, and alleged retaliation from management, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) workers have started to walk off the job this week. First, on Wednesday, about a dozen workers in Wal-Mart’s distribution warehouses in Southern California walked out, followed the next day by 30 more from six stores in the Seattle area.

The workers, who are part of a union-backed employee coalition called Making Change at Wal-Mart, say this is the beginning of a wave of protests and strikes leading up to next week’s Black Friday. A thousand store protests are planned in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the group says.

"Wal-Mart: 50 Years of Gutting America's Middle Class."

Photo from the article, courtesy of the documentary, 'Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price'.

What better choice for reading on the nation's birthday? Speaking of our forefathers (note the proper spelling, Erika), is this what they fought and died for?

Wal-Mart: 50 Years of Gutting America's Middle Class

Walmart's explosive growth has gutted two key pillars of the American middle class: small businesses and well-paid manufacturing jobs

by Stacy Mitchell

Still too a high a cost of low price.

Shift happens, but it's about more than rerouting monetary allocations. It's about shifting attitudes, perspectives and priorities. To grasp that the Wal-Mart model of capitalism applied to oneself would utterly preclude a living wage is to enable a whole panoply of insights. Those who demand that government define wants and needs may have a point, but it's one they generally are unable to apply to their own roles as consumers. Until they can look in the mirror and scream the same mantra, I'll not be compelled to take them seriously.

Wal-Mart repelled in Saranac Lake, NY: “This is more authentic capitalism.”

Capitalism as a model for empowering community rather than promoting exploitation via the Wal-Mart way? Sounds suspicious to me.

A Town Creates Its Own Department Store, by Amy Cortese (New York Times)

... So when Wal-Mart Stores came knocking, some here welcomed it. Others felt that the company’s plan to build a 120,000-square-foot supercenter would overwhelm their village, with its year-round population of 5,000, and put local merchants out of business.

It’s a situation familiar to many communities these days. But rather than accept their fate, residents of Saranac Lake did something unusual: they decided to raise capital to open their own department store. Shares in the store, priced at $100 each, were marketed to local residents as a way to “take control of our future and help our community,” said Melinda Little, a Saranac Lake resident who has been involved in the effort from the start. “The idea was, this is an investment in the community as well as the store” ...

... Think of it as the retail equivalent of the Green Bay Packers — a department store owned by its customers that will not pick up and leave when a better opportunity comes along or a corporate parent takes on too much debt.

Degeneracy redefined: McCain, Wal-Mart slime Obama.

There is a certain satisfaction to be derived from the public meltdown of your ideological enemies, whether they’re John McCain’s slew of quasi-racial and cultural epithets hurled in the general direction of Barack Obama, thus confirming the degeneracy of the Republican nominee, or the fact that Wal-Mart, a corporation deserving of confinement in the Hague and subsequent trial for crimes against human dignity, is regularly exposed as flouting the democratic principles that so many of its customers presume to espouse.

McCain will be gone soon, and over the years, we’ve enjoyed exposing Wal-Mart and the cluelessness of its shoppers, as when Bluegill trenchantly noted the presence of labor union stickers on cars in the company’s humongous parking lots.

Read. Print. Distribute. Live. Repeat.

It’s especially relevant now that the union-fearing Bentonville management is openly preaching anti-Obama politics to its employees.

Wal-Mart warning managers of labor bill

We’ve never ceased reminding readers that there is a high cost to low price, as when NAC joined Destinations Booksellers way back in 2005 in screening Robert Greenwald’s movie of the same name.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, as the movie release date draws nearer, Bentonville begins circling the wagons.

Americans being, well, Americans, suggests that huge retail chains and big boxes won’t be going away any time soon. The important thing to remember is that they be kept in their place, and that as we contemplate the ongoing renewal of downtown New Albany, we bear in mind that when in doubt, pursuing development strategies that are the polar opposite of Wal-Mart’s preferences generally will yield the best results.

Contrarianism and individuality are to Bentonville what daylight and the crucifix were to the Transylvanian count. We must remake downtown into something very, very weird.