Big-Box Adopting Urban Forms
I came across this post from the blog “Bird To The North” (check out our “links” section) a while ago, and with the recent focus on big-box development in Windsor thought it incredibly appropriate to repost now. From BTTN…
They’re getting better and better at infiltrating the urban environment. The stores have figured out a format to be profitable because though start-up costs are much higher, urban stores generate more revenue.Actually, I wouldn’t mind if traditional big boxes fit their aesthetics to be less intrusive in urban settings. What I worry about is that corporations say that they have community benefits in mind, but then get away with not doing so, and that they displace local merchants. What if there are no local merchants? It takes a pretty savvy and persistent city manager to be close to the project to make sure the aesthetic, functional, and economic benefits are fulfilled.
We’re not the only community struggling with the onslaught of Big-Box, and how best to deal with the new retail environment they are imposing upon established communities. What better way to open a dialogue with our elected officials than to prove to them that we CAN have our cake and eat it too?
Tags: big box retail, Downtown, Urban Design
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I have no problem with a big-box store to some degree. If they want to locate in Windsor then lets have them build in areas WE want them to build. If not, move on! If they build where we believe we need retail then they can follow guidelines for their design just like they do in other cities.
So I ask, why aren’t the citizens of Windsor getting the same treatment as other cities who flex their muscles on the big box store developments? Are we not good enough or are we being taken advantage of because of our depressed economy? I believe both!
Windsorites really don’t know how to fight for these things! The citizens of this fair city do not realize the power that lie in their hands. We’re a coddled bunch, who would rather pick up and move than fight for their neighbourhood. That’s all going to change once they try and sell their homes nowadays. They’ll have no choice but to fix up their communities, then.
Let’s hope they haven’t forgotten how to fight when that happens.
Lets also hope that the fringe dwellers haven’t forgotten how to live in a community after being barracaded behind garages and culdesacs and sitting high up in tinted suv’s.
Heh, SUV drivers…. Every time gas prices rise I can’t help but giggle at those buffoons in their Land Rovers and Hummers, as I put a week and a half of gas into my Saturn.
Urban Big Box stores would be a great start. However deveolpers will just piss and moan about the extra cost associated with these buildings. They have to give a thought to the design and parking ususally isn’t accomplished by paving over a few acres of farm fields.
As long as the stooges in Administration and Council continue to rubber stamp big boxes on the fringe, our doughnut hole will continue to grow…
When the tide does turn, and it will, there will be a lot of unhappy people stuck in big homes and big cars and a good hike of a distance from anything that looks like bread milk and eggs. That donut hole will start to look good again, and it will.
Sporto
To be sure the tide is now turning. It has crested and we are at that point where one just starts to see the flow is going the other way.
Unfortunately, most of the population will not notice that things are going awry until there is an event that demonstrates the folly of our cities. Sometime soon we will experience a temporary gasoline shortage. Prices will rise dramatically and a few stations will be without fuel for a couple of hours or a day or so. When that happens of course they will blame the oil companies because that is the easy target. When it happens a second or third time and they can no longer blame the oil companies then it will dawn on everyone that we need a solution to driving everywhere. By then it will be too late, so we need to demonstrate that it is better if we live in walkable communities and that we start to build and rebuild them now so that we do not have to rely so much on our cars.
We can have cars, it is alright to drive. The problem is our total reliance on cars to get anywhere and everywhere.
Everyone here raises some important questions.
What is going to happen to the billions of dollars in sub-urban development when the crisis does come? Will it be a Mad Max type of environment with soccer moms clinging to the wasting vestiges of the American Dream as they arm themselves and ransack the well-prepared urban masses who saw the light a decade prior and prepared for it?
Or will these sub-urbanites search their souls and invent sub-urban-agriculture, raising chickens and squash on their organic 1/4 acre lots surrounded by barbed-wire to keep out their less-than-prepared neighbours?
It’s going to be a scary time for everone - the prepared urbanites and the unprepared ostriches. We will not be yelling “I told you so’s” from the seats of our bicycles as we really want to. We will be aiding our less-fortunate community members to adapt to this new lifestyle they were forced into.
It sure would be easier if we could proactively prepare them instead of the alternative, though.
Wait until that infrastructure starts to fall apart and the raising of property taxes. Tecumseh is trying to ward that off by raising taxes high now for a contigency fund but I still think it won’t be enough. Especially when people start to move from Tecumseh into Lakeshore.
“Devonshire official sees big future for downtown
Downtown Windsor still has a great future if all merchants band together in cooperative promotions, the vice-president of Cambridge Leaseholds, developer of Deveonshire Mall, told the Rotary Club Monday.
David King of Toronto urged merchants to “get on the bandwagon” in efforts like the successful sidewalk sale of last week. He described formation of the Downtown Development Corporation as a “strong and positive forward step” in keeping the central shopping area competitive.”
and further….
“In addition to its (Devonshire Mall) diverse shopping facilities, the mall will have a community auditorium for various meetings and will arrange for demonstrations of art, fashion shows, educational exhibits and fund-raising activities.” Windsor Star, July 28, 1970, page 3, Gord McNulty
New Urbanism, my anal cavity it is! This blather goes on all the time when some developer wants to bullshine the city pandering department, the Windsor Star is riddled with these mouthings and the city pandering department goes along with it ALL THE TIME! AND NEVER HOLDs THE DEVELOPERS TO WHAT THEY SO CALLED PROMISED TO GET THE DEFERRAL! to the official city plan.
Spend some time in the card index to the Windsor Star at the Central library and look at all the major retail developments that have gone ahead in this city, it is the same language just with newer buzz words and you will see how the city planning bent over backwards each time for an unsustainable sprawling development to go ahead. Totally forgetting that they had a plan..what a face this is.
So give me a break! This city department could easily be cut from the budget and nobody will miss them, all we need is the city traffic department to recommend how many roads to build. Talk about the task of Sisyphus!
Jim Yanchula at the great weekend gathering of Scaledown.ca stated, “he didn’t want more visioning or planning, that the city has a plan, it’s there on the city’s website and everybody should read it.” So why isn’t the mayor, city council and the city planning (pandering) department reading and following their own (OUR) plan!
So go ahead and let the developers have their way, your job is secure as long as you keep producing these glossy reports that mean nothing, they make you feel important and maybe remove these reports from your website as they don’t give the seeming true reality of the situation in this city. And heaven forbid that someone from outside of the city believes that we are really progressive.when the Banwell decision is discovered for what it really is!