FUN WITH THE LOONY LEFT PART I

I'm not pleased about today's Supreme Court decision that allows municipalities to seize private property for the purposes of economic development that benefit private parties. It's terrible interpretation of the Constitution and frankly, it just emboldened powerful land owners and their corrupt city partners.

So, to get rid of some of my frustration, I'm going to have some fun with the unhinged opponents of "Sprawl-Mart" or as normal, thinking people call them, Wal-Mart. Yeah, they're big, cheap and buy a lot from China. So what? We all do. But a meme has gathered steam to the effect that Wal-Mart is the root of all evil. In some places they've accelerated the decline of the local economy, but in other areas they're just like any other big box retailer if you really look into it.

Well, a local website BlueOregon.com had one of these unhinged Wal-Mart activists talk about how a proposed Wal-Mart in Gresham, Oregon needs to be opposed because Wal-Marts cause sprawl. That's clearly impossible as Oregon cities literally have lines drawn around them, called Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), that restrict development outside of the boundary. So how, exactly, does Wal-Mart cause sprawl with a store well within the boundary? Who knows.. but the guy who wrote this screed apparently does.

Below the article, I wrote a critical comment and I'm curious to see what kind of response to this I get:

Posted by: Bill | June 23, 2005 03:57 PM

Can someone please explain to me exactly how Wal-Mart causes sprawl in Oregon when it must abide by Oregon's land-use planning regs, including urban growth boundaries which restrict expansion, among other things.

Since technically you can't have sprawl when there's literally a line drawn around what can be developed and keeping everything else off-limits, what exactly does the unhinged opposition mean by sprawl?
Traffic?
Development in general?

It seems to me that if individuals support a UGB and all related planning to make a place more "liveable" (whatever the hell that means), one needs to get used to the idea that things are going to be crammed in more densely - including Wal-Mart.

Here goes nothing!