Can Good Planning Tame the Suburban Retail Monster?

There's nothing quite like the prospect of a Wal-Mart to get communities thinking collectively about how development can impact their future.

Because of the retail giant's outsized footprint in the American economy and all that it has come to symbolize about sprawl, its progression into the urban market is bound to lead to some interesting public meetings.

Richard Layman at Network blog Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space says urbanists should focus on what they can influence -- the form the megastore will take in city environments. These excerpts were borrowed from a story he wrote on Wal-Mart's development plans for D.C. for the Washington Business Journal:

It's hard to imagine a Wal-Mart without sprawling parking lots near interchanges and the worst characteristics of auto-centric design. We'll see whether strategic negotiation will yield a new dynamic.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Austin on Two Wheels argues that the key to bringing cycling activity in America on par with Europe is to create infrastructure that gives cyclists a travel time advantage over motorists. A Planner's Dream Gone Wrong says that like cities and regions, states should no longer look at their neighbors as rivals, but part of an inner-connected economic system. And TBD on Foot reports that a drunken driver in Maryland will serve eight years for killing a cyclist.