{"id":1649,"date":"2012-08-01T09:58:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T15:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2012-10-10T08:38:45","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T14:38:45","slug":"developing-9th-and-colorado-part-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1649","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Hypocrisy and Urban Vibrancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just this morning I discovered a nice opinion piece in The Denver Business Journal<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0about the 9th and Colorado Walmart debate. \u00a0It’s\u00a0by Brad Segal<\/a>, president of Progressive Urban Management Associates<\/a> in Denver. The piece<\/a> is a breath of fresh air to the extent that it articulates a thoughtful and well-informed case\u00a0in favor<\/em> of Walmart\u2019s presence at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado. Such opinions have been in very short supply in popular media accounts and in the online back-and-forth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr. Segal confesses a deep aversion to Walmart for many of the same reasons that local neighbors find the retailer objectionable.\u00a0 \u00a0But he also calls out neighborhood \u201chypocrisy,\u201d which he deems \u201cunbearable.\u201d \u00a0Mr. Segal notes\u00a0the social class position of most local Congress Park and Hilltop households \u201cwithin the 10% of higher incomes.\u201d \u00a0So do we<\/a>, while \u00a0also pointing out that more impoverished households can be found in the immediate area, especially within the Hale neighborhood. Class privilege produces much lamenting about Walmart but great rejoicing about Trader Joe\u2019s. \u00a0It supports the patronizing of a Target store about one mile distant but mobilizes opposition to a \u201cvalue shopping alternative\u201d within walking distance.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, Mr. Segal provides some reasons, based on the site\u2019s urban context<\/em>, why we shouldn\u2019t fear a Walmart at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado for its potentially negative impact on small local businesses and property values.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Like Mr. Segal, I’m repelled by much of what Walmart represents. \u00a0Like Mr. Segal, I\u2019m struck by the hypocrisy and elitism of the more vocal objecting neighbors. \u00a0It’s really interesting how people who probably don’t give even a passing thought to rising capitalist exploitation and declining trade unionism during the day all of a sudden become ardent socialists and unionists\u00a0(or, minimally,\u00a0Wall Street Occupiers<\/a>)\u00a0when a Walmart is proposed for their neighborhood. But most importantly, like Mr. Segal I see a great opportunity here to leverage<\/em> citizen concerns to make this area a much better place than even the developer and city planners might imagine. \u00a0The debate about 9th and Colorado seems to have lost sight of both context and circumstance.\u00a0 It\u2019s at risk of being hijacked by the more strident partisans on both<\/em> sides, especially those in the anti-Walmart camp who justify their development ambitions by invoking a deep concern for neighborhood \u201cvibrancy.\u201d \u00a0As Thomas Frank points out in this nice essay<\/a>, the concept of “vibrant” can be deeply problematic and serve as a codeword for a particular kind of urban exclusivity.\u00a0 Alternatively, the tactical focus at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado should be on context-sensitive,\u00a0inclusive<\/em> place-making<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and not on vibrancy schemes that can easily produce social and economic gating by other means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just this morning I discovered a nice opinion piece in The Denver Business Journal\u00a0\u00a0about the 9th and Colorado Walmart debate. \u00a0It’s\u00a0by Brad Segal, president of Progressive Urban Management Associates in Denver. The piece is a breath of fresh air to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9th-and-colorado"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-qB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}