"Y'all should have declared victory after you got the big box ordinance passed and the minor site plan concessions from Wal-mart."

The Wal-Mart plan as it stands today is modestly better than current conditions. Opportunities to get an even better plan WITH Wal-Mart were foregone by the denial of RG4N of the right of the Supercenter to be built there at all (a position with which the people Kedron mentions universally viewed as untenable).

I can think of many ways in which a Wal-Mart exactly the same size as the one we're going to end up with could have been built which would have better supported the urban principles I love - which RG4N said they wanted too. Those improvements were lost forever (well, for the design life of the project, which I'd put at another 20 years). The position "we'd support a non-Supercenter Wal-Mart" which was taken by some folks semi-aligned with RG4N is not what I'm talking about here; I'm talking about the full-sized Supercenter box, done better (think Macy's in New York, or various Urban Target treatments around the country).

In other words, had RG4N said "we'll give you your big box, but here's what you have to do to make it more attractive for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users, and more sustainable in the long-run", I'd have joined, and been one of your agitators, even. And we might have gotten something valuable done in the process. The position that big stores only belong on frontage roads, on the other hand, is one I'll fight with every last breath - whether the big store in question is a Macy's, a Dillard's, a Harrod's, a Target, or a Wal-Mart.

(One of the most ironic things in the posturing about big boxes and frontage roads is that at least one of the same councilmembers who said big stores belong on frontage roads has indicated a desire to get a big store at Seaholm.)