link For those of you familiar with the Houston area, Wal Mart is proposing to build a Wal Mart in the Heights area. For those of you not familiar, The Heights is an inner city area that has been redeveloped, is very eclectic and has a lot of independent shops of all types. Its also and expensive place to live. I can't help but think some of this is snobbish. I don't remember the furor over Target going up.
As a Heights resident, I really... really don't want Wal-Mart to build this store. Based on much of the research I've seen, it will probably have a negative impact on traffic and crime, not to mention the fact that it will drive other local businesses out. However, they bought the land (at ~3x the going rate) based upon the fact that the Target over on Sawyer is the highest grossing / sq ft Target in the city, so there's likely very little to be done about it.
About freaking time we got a Wal-Mart in the middle of town. And the damn thing isn't even IN the Heights! It's in the Rice Military area. Signed, A Rice Military Resident
Agreed that it's technically to be located in the Rice Military area, but it will still have a significant impact on the Heights area based on the fact that Yale is a major corridor. Just out of curiosity, what is it that you like about having a Wal-Mart Superstore located that close to you? I will say that I'm more excited about the addition of a Whole Foods and possibly an HEB.
I probably won't ever set foot in it, to be honest. Maybe if it's 3AM and I need to buy a wireless router or something? I just don't get the Wal-Mart boogieman. Vote with your wallet. If you don't want the Wal-Mart, don't shop there and it will go away. But don't dictate to other people how they should spend their money by limiting their options because you have some kind of hangup about big box stores. Not like WM is tearing down a historic location like the Barnes and Noble did, or going up in the middle of a residential neighborhood. They bought some crap land in the inner loop and they're pouring money into it. Good for them. I hope it brings some more life to the area and makes it more livable.
Drive a lot with your eyes closed? It's one of the few neighborhoods I'd consider living in if someone held a gun to my head and insisted I had to move back from Austin. Heck, my mother was born in the Houston Heights, as it was called then, and my grandmother, her mom, was born there when it was still a separate town. Mom still remembers riding a streetcar downtown to go shopping. Walmart? We stopped one from being built in Southwest Austin. It's possible to stop them, but takes a real effort from the area, the homeowners associations, hundreds going to city council meetings, and the like. Sadly, Houston has no zoning, which helped us a little in Austin.
Nothing to see here. Snotty liberals profess "empathy" for the poor while at the same time getting up in arms about the construction of a store that will let them stretch their budgets a bit further.
Heck yes, and instead we got a Wendy's, a tavern, a which which and a bicycle shop. Circle C FTW baby !! Now, if they would get busy building that stinking Alamo drafthouse we are golden. DD
They should protest Wal-Mart putting RFID tracking equipment in clothes rather than it simply getting built I understand the fury over Wal-Mart. But like DonnyMost said, vote with your wallet and just don't go. Find an alternative and be content to pay more. (cue South Park related episode)
How do you define the market? Consumers are part of the market I think it's obvious the protesters don't want the people who shop at Wal-Mart to be around there.
Unless I am mistaken . . .the concept has always been If they put it there . .. and it fails because it did not make money then the market has made the decision Rocket River
Let the market decide. If there is no support for a Walmart in that location, it will quickly go out of business. I suspect the opposite is true; that a loud minority are trying to keep it out, and a great number of people will end up shopping there if it is built.
