Thinking Outside the Box Store

Hey - isn't there a Canadian Tire planned for the CocoBox development in Ojibway? Remember, just because they've got a reference to "Canada" in their name, doesn't make them the benign store that many think they are.

Many thanks to The Tyee for publishing this article and to Gord for sending it to me. (By the way, the author of this article is Ned Jacobs, son of the late and great urbanist Jane Jacobs. Man, I miss that woman!)

Thinking Outside the Box Store
By Ned Jacobs
TheTyee.ca

The stated object of Mayor Sullivan's EcoDensity initiative is to reduce Vancouver's "eco-footprint" by cutting energy use and waste, while improving livability and housing affordability.

These goals are laudable, but will EcoDensity actually live up to its billing?

The apparent willingness of the mayor and some councillors to significantly expand big box development in South Vancouver is clearly at odds with EcoDensity.

The environmental and social benefits of density are due to economies of location, mainly achieved through growth of neighbourhood centres with diverse functions.

In sharp contrast, big box retail exploits economies of scale, relying on a widely dispersed customer base, public subsidies for car owners, and plenty of cheap parking.

"Green" building design of a box store does not alter its fundamental dependency on cars and fossil fuels.

And while multi-chain big box plantations can be cost-effective and convenient for car-owning consumers, it's always at the expense of commercial diversity and stability in central and neighbourhood business districts. Retailers in our pedestrian-oriented centres pay premium rents for their location, often with limited or pricey parking. Big box retailers compete unfairly by converting lower-cost industrial land to retail use, while asking us all to suffer the consequences of car dependency.

The question before Vancouver City Council is an application by Canadian Tire for a 255,000 square-foot "big box" retail development that is expected to generate up to 11,000 car trips per day on heavily congested Marine Drive."

255,000 square feet is dwarfed when compared to the 420,000 of CocoBox that Windsor's city council just approved a zoning change for. I hope SouthVan does a better job at protecting it's local economy than Windsor.

Read the rest of this article at The Tyee's website here.