North Carolina Man Shows How Per Acre, Wal-Mart and Sprawl Are An Economic Cancer

[votesparks]

Last edited Thu Nov 14, 2013, 11:35 PM - Edit history (1)

An article this week on salon.com details the journey of a North Carolina Architect Joseph Minicozzi who has shown through his own study of development in downtown Asheville that per acre, inner city downtown developments bring in almost 7 times per acre than do big box developments like Wal-Mart. Minicozzi also found that in Sarasota County, Fla. it would take about three times as long for the county to recoup the land and infrastructure costs involved in developing housing in a sprawl pattern as compared with downtown. If all went well, the county's return on investment for sprawl housing would still be barely 4 percent.

David talks about the issue of sprawl and economic development, how it relates to climate change, and more in this edition of The David Sparks Show.

The Original and full piece in salon can be found here:

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/10/walmart_an_economic_cancer_on_our_cities/

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Jane Jacobs Rediscovered and Updated is what this is.

Her book on this, a classic, for those who haven't heard of her: Death and Life of Great American Cities
She made essentially the same points that Minicozzi is making now, although Wal-Mart and the like didn't exist back when she wrote this.

[underpants]

2. Great video

[votesparks]

4. Thank you!

kindly!

[freedom fighter jh]

3. Would be interesting to see what would happen if online shopping were included

in the analysis.

Stuff you buy online typically does require extra packaging (not good for the environment), but probably much less driving. Most likely it will come to you via a UPS truck that's got lots of other deliveries in your neighborhood.