Comments on: Walmart Wins

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:54:11 +0000

JMTC,

Trust me, we here in the historic corridor, as it is often called, understand the need for planning. Trouble is that the local governments have taken unfortunately short sighted approaches to the problem areas. The county I live in for example, is one of the ten fastest growing in the country. BUT, only within the last decade has it staffed a trained professional planner. And even then, only empowered the position to offer strongly worded rebukes. Fact of the matter is that some portions of the county have less than half the available office space occupied, as result of a massive building spree. The reason for the low occupancy levels is not the economy, as the rate of new rentals has actually increased as companies flee the beltway. No, it is because the developers provisioned in some cases triple what the market would bear. Why? Because if they didn’t set up the office complex at that time, under lax regulations and zoning restrictions, they would not have another chance. Thus we have “pre-staged” sprawl. All just waiting for the next round of refugees from the beltway. Or in some cases hedging bets that the government will require more office space as it expands. As many of my projects involve integrating Web 2.0 and introducing tele-commuting options to the mostly government-related clients, I live for the day we don’t have two hour drives into a formal work site.

By: SelenesMom

SelenesMom — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:46:47 +0000

As an Oregonian — with all the good and bad of land-use planning and public beaches that that entails — as well as a preservationist buff and a collateral descendant of one of the Gettysburg generals, I really think this is best viewed in a big-picture context. We can all go back and forth all day on who should have put a Wal-Mart where (as though there were some Wal-Mart shortage!) and what local people did or didn’t want it. Far better would be a conversation, probably on the statewide level, as to how to direct development for the next 50 to 100 years, taking into account population growth and preserving historical and natural sites and the rural way of life.

Of course all sorts of arguments would break out, but most of them would be long before the fact. You folks back East might say that this can’t be done for all sorts of reasons, but we’ve been doing it my whole life. So there it is. I’ll throw it out there. As fond as I am of the various efforts to save this or that battlefield, I think what you really need is some better land-use planning in general, and pronto. Not just for your battlefields. For your golf courses, your high-rises, your senior care centers, the whole nine yards. Quit sprawling.

JMTC

By: Ken Noe

Ken Noe — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:04:59 +0000

Kevin, like Mark, I was amazed that no one recognized the smiley face, as until the recent makeover Wal–Mart plastered it all over their stores, and employees wore it on their smocks. Not many Wal-Mart shoppers already, I guess, which doesn’t bode well for a boycott. I read it as sardonic, but then I knew that we both signed the petition.

Mark, you need to add K-Mart to your list. As I’ve mentioned here before, a decade ago they happily built a store on top of a Confederate graveyard near Dallas, Georgia, with local government compliance. — Ken

By: Kevin Levin

Kevin Levin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:29:46 +0000

Mark,

Actually, that is exactly why I used that particular image.

By: Mark Snell

Mark Snell — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:51:02 +0000

Mr. Thompson,

Just a wild guess here, but perhaps Kevin used the ’smiley face’ because it appears in Walmart television commercials. I also hope you choose to never eat at McDonald’s, Friendly’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Ruby Tuesdays, or purchase items from Office Max, GNC, or other such retail stores, since those enterprises have been built on part of the field where Pickett’s Charge occurred and where Gettysburg’s Letterman Hospital once stood. Give Kevin a break–he’s merely stating the obvious. No of us wanted this to happen, but it did.

By: Donald Thompson

Donald Thompson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:10:13 +0000

Kevin,
I’m curious as to why you chose to use a smiley face to accompany your post and why you seemed so accepting of the decision in favor of Walmart. Personally I’m not ready to “move on.” I will never step foot inside a Walmart again and am urging family and friends to do the same.

Donald

By: Woodrowfan

Woodrowfan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:53:38 +0000

Not surprising, sad, but not surprising. Another reason to dislike Walmart..

By: chris meekins

chris meekins — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:28:10 +0000

Maybe I am confused, probably so. But are not battlefields preserved so that the action might be studied? I just checked a few mission statements and it seems to me to be the case. When we lose ground to development it is almost never recovered. I visited Marye’s Heights about a year ago (my first real park service visit) and was hard pressed to imagine open fields below in what is now a city – granted little could be done to stop that expansion. But it distracts from the understanding of the terrain, and the battle. Hopefully, Walmart will be a good neighbor – as they always claim.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:11:00 +0000

I visited Atlanta in 2001 with my wife who was attending an international conference and while we were there we visited the home of one of her colleagues. It wasn’t until nearly five years later that I learned my great great great grandmother’s younger brother fought at Leggett’s Hill in the Battle of Atlanta and that we had passed through the battlefield enroute to her colleague’s house. My ancestor’s sibling was wounded on what is now a freeway overpass not far from the middle of Atlanta. The city had only 6,000 people in 1860 and the battle took place up in the woods outside of town. If the Union victory there had been something the people of Atlanta had wanted to remember I’m sure they would have preserved it as some kind of historic battlefield park. I was able to locate it after the fact because preservationists have used what landmarks remain to post commemorative plaques at several hundred locations in and around the city, but the locality exerted its pull upon me long before the realization that it had done so reached me.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:57:11 +0000

Rob,
I would say, for me at least, it is not some passionate, fetish toward the topic. I don’t go out of my way to say if R.E. Lee’s horse stood some place that it must be preserved. And I would draw a clear distinction between a site where an event occurred, as in your example of the Old Capital, and a battlefield. Is it important to “see” the room where Lincoln stood to gain an understanding of the event? Maybe. But I’d say less than 1% of the understanding of the event requires that “setting” to be seen. On the other hand if we are discussing a battle, the factor is much higher. Perhaps as much as half.

I’ve known historians who would write an entire book about a campaign. Yet freely admit to never sitting foot on the field. The resultant narrative reads as if the battle was fought on some billiard table. I could perhaps excuse an author writing on ancient military history, or European history. But here in the US we have these wonderful resources set aside for the general public! Why not use them?

Hence my stance that we should preserve what we can, as best we can, in order to understand the battle. If some believe that to be fanatical….. well there are worse things to be fanatical about!