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The story is great--about a small town that said "no" to Wal-Mart and formed a co-op instead. The story mentions that the nearest comparable department store was 50 miles away!
But it's more than just that. Look at the streets of the small town shown in the news clip (and the linked image.) The buildings go up to the curb, with sidewalks, and relatively narrow streets. The buildings are 2-3 stories tall, and I'd wager that at least some of those upper-story areas are apartments. When I talk about "walkable neighborhoods," this is exactly what I'm talking about. And the business model of their co-op, local businesspeople serving the local community, using existing walk-up storefronts instead of a big box, scales very well--a "small-box retail" model that works as well in small towns as it does in big cities. It's also based on community in other ways: instead of the store owner being a faceless corporation half a continent away, it's your neighbor. And again, that works as well in small towns as big cities. No skyscrapers required.
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The story is great--about a small town that said "no" to Wal-Mart and formed a co-op instead. The story mentions that the nearest comparable department store was 50 miles away!
But it's more than just that. Look at the streets of the small town shown in the news clip (and the linked image.) The buildings go up to the curb, with sidewalks, and relatively narrow streets. The buildings are 2-3 stories tall, and I'd wager that at least some of those upper-story areas are apartments.
Yea I saw that. Sounded really interesting. But Saranac Lake might not be a very typical town. It's in the middle of nowhere; deep in the Adirondacks and is mostly a tourist / resort town. It's also one of the colder places in the country. The California equivalent might be a place by Lake Tahoe?
Much of my town is similar to that photo but with a much wider main street (though a lot of the side streets are narrow) and some slightly taller buildings. I was a bit disappointed that towns like that aren't common in the western US.
Come to think of it, I might be the only regular poster on this forum who doesn't live inside a metro area. Anyone else here?
There are a lot of small towns like this in California. One where I lived, the Arcata/Eureka area in Humboldt County, also kept out a Wal-Mart. That was the first place where I learned the value of walkable communities--both cities combined were lower in population than the suburb where I grew up, but they were walkable and compact due to having been built as self-contained small towns. Transit wasn't superb (a local bus system for each city, and a county-wide system) but it was better than where I grew up (where one bus line with a stop more than a mile from my house was the only way downtown or to the mall 5 miles away.)
There are a lot of tourist-economy/resort towns in both sets of California mountains, with downtowns that, physically, don't look that different than Saranac Lake. Valley towns tend to be a little flatter, but their downtowns still feature those 2-3 story buildings that usually had apartments upstairs. When I was vacationing in Wisconsin this fall, we stayed in a small town of 3000 people. Downtown, there were 2-3 story buildings with apartments upstairs--although they were mostly either vacant or dedicated entirely to the tourist/hunting trade, all shuttered over the past decade since a Wal-Mart came to town 10 miles away and siphoned off their business.
There are a lot of small towns like this in California. One where I lived, the Arcata/Eureka area in Humboldt County, also kept out a Wal-Mart.
Whoops forgot about Arcata and Eureka. I've seen both. I really liked Arcata, didn't spent as much time in Eureka. Arcata reminded of some compact college towns back home; walkable and compact but with a distinctly Western culture, architecture and layout.
Perhaps I didn't get a great sample of towns in the West. A lot of them seemed to have a very small old town center while much of the development was in ugly strips outside of the center. The Oregon Coast towns (though there were a few nice ones) were the worst offenders. The main street didn't even pass through the old section in most towns; the old section was a small touristy section off to the side.
I am glad there are some small towns that are trying to keep Wal-Mart out. Besides those types of towns are great, I really wish more Americans love building new places to live like that rather than suburbs and that would have been far most sustainable by taking up much less land but still give people many of the "qualities" people wanted in suburbs including closeness of nature and no need for unsightly modernist skyscrapers. I wish that more cities and towns across America and the world had the inner strength and insight to deny Walmart entry into their town, I know that New York City now catered to Walmart and they're going to build it and have horrific effects on their small businesses and lives, just like how Chicago allowed Walmart to enter and over 80 small businesses shut down because of it.
Saranac Lake is a cool town, been there many times. Lived in Lake Placid for awhile and that entire area of NY is gorgeous.
Walmart doesn't need to be in every town and city in the country like McD's. Seems like no matter where you go all places look the same now. Same stores, same everything.
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