Lexington: Make Good Plans For A "New" City Hall

One of the hot topics of last summer and fall was the push that the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government was making toward a new City Hall.  

After the collapse of consideration on the CentrePointe block, focus shifted to the Central Library building and its parking garage as the primary site. Although the 5 story structure seems to not be adequately arranged, those in the know feel that, with a few modifications, it could work.

Shortly after this plan became known, the Lexington-Herald Leader announced a shift in the location of their printing daily publication from Lexington to Louisville.  That, coupled with a further reduction in staff, led to the possibility of finding a smaller office space and placing their prime location well up on the list of candidates.

Some of us believe that the H-L building may a lack of square footage, but there is quite enough room surrounding the building for additions and leaving sufficient parking.  It really would make quite a statement on civic pride with a renovated (narrowed) Midland Avenue, its Town Branch Trail and the Thoroughbred Park directly in front and a backdrop of the highly treed Bell Court neighborhood.  Even the small street connecting a new back door to the neighborhood is named in honor of a former mayor, John Skain (1908-1912).

Whichever of the two sites is chosen, the "new" City Hall will not be in a newly built civic building which has been the dream of the merged government for more than four decades.  Financial woes and the struggle to balance urban, suburban and rural priorities have always seemed to push the extravagance of a new building just a little more down the list of necessities.

As always, in discussions on City Hall, the subject of sufficient space for the essential functions of government should be at the forefront.  One of my recent discussions led to remembrances of our early "part-time" council members.  I say "part-time" since they were limited to $6,000 (in 1972) and I was earning just under that in an unskilled position.  I don't think that anybody could do the job and have a family on that salary alone.  Those first council members shared office space and did most of their own research.  A tough part time job.

Thing is, back then the Fayette County population was a whopping 174,323+ and each council member represented approximately 14,527 residents on average.  Their constituents were in somewhat compact districts except for district 12, which was (and still is) primarily our rural farmland.  If memory serves, the population of district 12 (14,272) influenced the number and size of the remaining districts.

Today's district representative still receives a part-time salary (approx. $31,8000), has an office, a full-time legislative aide, a full calendar and a constituency of over 26,200 (an 80%+ increase).  The individual districts have over time, become less compact and considerably more diverse and not just culturally.  

A number of districts have become elongated, one to the point of representing folks living in a 1930's subdivision just south of the UK stadium AND folks living in a development on the Jessamine County line.  Our "mostly rural" 12th district is now approximately evenly split between suburban housing and the farming community.

Over 40 years, our community involvement has increased along with the population.  Neighborhood associations and home-owners groups are more common.  Today's council members need to keep touch with nearly all of these groups, either personally or through their aides.  They also need to be aware of groups forming within their districts.

By contrast, Louisville, and its more recently formed Metro Government, has 26 council members serving approximately 29,000 constituents.  Jefferson County has 113 square miles more than Fayette and nearly twice the population.  They also lack the distinct ring of rich horse farm property on the outer fringe.  It would not appear that they will have the need to drastically revamp their council districts any time soon.

This year is also the time to begin discussions on the community's comprehensive plan and there are a series of upcoming "On the Table" meetings on the calendar.  A usual topic is the possibility of expanding the Urban Services Area, further cutting into the farmland ring of ours, and its effect of the 12th council district.  One solution being floated around is the division of the 12th district into 2 or more parts.  Given the aforementioned role of the rural area in influencing district size, will any resulting divisions consider having a balance of urban and rural constituency while maintaining to be primarily rural?

The U.S. Census Bureau will soon call on all communities to begin redefining their census tracts and block groups for the decennial population count in 2020.  That count will be the basis for a required redistricting in 2022.

How we make plans for building our community and its quality of life, consider the possibility of an expanded Council and prepare to move into a "new" City Hall all look to be inter-related.  Now is a good time to begin planning for those questions.

Thoughts?

Lexington To Fully Enbrace Community Supported Agriculture?

I am a big fan of CSAs, as in Community Supported Agriculture.  We have looked at joining a CSA for several years but most have required a substantial payment before the growing season begins and it just wasn't in the budget at the time.  This year things were different.

We have joined an alternative style of CSA called the New Roots Fresh Stop.  It is designed for those of more limited means and works more like a subscription farmers market.  Our farmer knows that a certain number of members will be arriving on the delivery days and buying the bi-weekly agreed upon quantity of what they need. Each family will be getting a different variety of produce. 

This CSA plus whatever we can harvest from our own garden and our work with Seedleaf will be worth whatever we have put into it.

On the other hand, I believe that there is another aspect of community supported agriculture and that pertains to the encouragement of neighborhood community gardens and the ability of a neighborhood to feed itself.  Every family in Lexington needs to realize food security through local food access.

Lexington has worked with Seedleaf, a local non-profit, which teaches about and operates small plots of neighborhood gardens, especially in our local food deserts.  It now appears that Lexington is creating an ordinance to promote and regulate not only community gardens but also what they are calling "market gardens".  The stated primary purpose of private, community and market gardens is to promote sustainable and affordable local food production for local consumption.

Market gardens would be defined as "an area of lane less than five (5) continuous acres in size for the cultivation of food and/or non-food crops by an individual or a group of individuals to be sold on-site or off-site for profit.  Think about that for just a minute.  A neighborhood could develop a parcel or group of parcels, not just as a garden to feed themselves but a way to raise funds to make the garden sustainable over the long haul. This will change the concept of local foods for many people.

While the market gardens are allowed on-site sale facilities the community gardens are not.  I see no reason that some sort of cooperative agreement could not be reached where the market garden sales site may sell produce from one or more community gardens.  

Provisions are also made for up to 15% of a community garden site to be covered with accessory structures  Accessory structures are identified as storage sheds, hoop houses, trellises for shade, picnic tables and benches.  Add the possibility of a fire pit or a grill and we could realize the truth of "farm to table" right in the community garden with your neighbors.

I also like the inclusion of permitting such gardens within a FEMA floodplain as long as one meets all the regulations on slope and existing vegetation retention.  There are several locations which are currently quite underutilized and their neighborhoods could benefit from a community garden or two.

The information I have referenced here is only in draft form but I think that it is far enough along to bring to you.  I am happy that we are actually moving toward a reasonable food policy which allows a sense of food access and food security.  If you feel as I do, please let your Council representative know that we need this to come to pass.

Thinking About Lexington's Urban Public Spaces

I spent some time this morning participating in an exercise identifying elements of downtown living for the Gehl Studio and DDA.

About 30 of us first discussed what we thought were distinctive parts of images from around the world. Photos of all types, taken of generally urban scenes, can give subtle clues to what people like (or dislike) about public spaces. By identifying which of these desirable parts we like, they can then be compared to those sites in Lexington which have them or really need them.

It did not strike me as odd that the common activity areas were delineated, nor that these will probably be surveyed further for more detailed responses. What was missing was the failure to question why other parts of our city may lack what we apparently desire. In other words, how do we direct street activity, both retail and pedestrian, to the “dead zones” of urbanity.

In my mind, such urban dead zones can be the usual surface parking which has commonly replaced the former fabric of downtown structures lost to neglect. They may also be the missing civic elements of neighborhoods where vast swaths of nearly identical housing limit the availability of many desirable elements identified above. If desirable elements attract activity, how can the encourage them where they are lacking?

I hope that much more can come out of this and that there is more community involvement in the coming months. I will be keeping an eye on the progress.

Suburban Changes, But Nothing New - Again

Following up on the commentary from my last entry about all of the fun new doings in downtown, I thought that I would see what our suburbanite neighbors have to amuse them.

A few weeks ago it as announced that the UK HealthCare folks would occupy the former Dillard's portion of the shuttered Turfland Mall, while the remainder is to be removed. Once again, Lexington will experience a partial redevelopment a property which exemplifies the problems that brought about the EPA Consent Decree. The hundreds of parking spaces here and those retained by the Southland Christian Church on the former Lexington Mall site do precious little to reduce our storm water runoff problem.

At the corner of Lane Allen and Harrodsburg Roads, on a parcel not part of the original Turfland Mall, they are demolishing the former Verizon (General Telephone) building, to be replaced by a new Walgreen's pharmacy. It does not matter that there is a recently built CVS directly across the street or an existing Walgreen's in the former McAlpin's Home store just about 600 yards farther out the road.

This area was, at the time that the mall was constructed, a thriving blend of subdivisions with young families needing a wide range of goods and services. Apparently, now the demographics say that they are aging boomers in need of health care and pharmaceutical assistance. I still believe that a balanced mix of uses directed at the immediate neighborhoods would do everybody good.

Mayor Gray, in his statements praising the UK HealthCare decision said “UK is making health-care services more convenient for Lexington citizens, while bringing new life to Turfland Mall.” But the mall is still dead. Similar comments were also made about the Southland Christian Church and Lexington Mall and until the outlots there become developed, it too will still be dead.

In concept, the mall was never entirely about shopping or retailing, it was supposed to be about interacting with other living human beings. Victor Gruen, the man who originated the mall concept was a sociologist, not a merchant. Gruen was attempting to recreate the feel of the downtown commercial district amongst the spreading neighborhoods of suburbia, with all of its vitality and human connections. Lexington, as in most places, chose to segregate shopping from most other forms of urban vitality so that both the downtowns and the malls died.

One of the prime draws of the malls here in Lexington would have to be the cafeteria style dining places like The Blue Boar, Morrison'sCafeteria and, to a lesser degree, York Steak House. For the elderly, these mall staples were a place to gather socially and even get some exercise. As the shift, from a mix of uses toward strictly retail, neared its completion, the lack of social vibrancy drove off much of the clientele and many chances for impulse buying.

It is hard for me to understand that the rival pharmacy companies can justify being located so closely to each other when all of the stores carry essentially identical product variety and lines. When did the old style drug store advance beyond the “over the counter” first aid remedies, cosmetics and candy counter to the liquor, small hardware and snack groceries of today's big box pharmacy? What sets Rite-Aid apart from CVS or Walgreen's when they all appear so similar in building shape and layout?

At one time it was the local drug store and the neighborhood pharmacist, the image that these big chains want to project about themselves today, that occupied a prime, central spot within a residential cluster. It would have been considered an anchor business along with a barber, small grocer and civic entities like a school, firehouse or church. I may, ideally, have included a local centralized streetcar stop in order to connect with other residential clusters making up an urban area.

Since the mid twentieth century, after living that way for so long, we Americans decided that we could not continue and began to shift our style of living. We can still remember or fantasize about how it was. We can use images of the past to evoke feelings of connectedness with our present. We can repeatedly convince ourselves that our present situation is “so much better that before” while clinging tightly to those mental images of our parents' childhood. What we cannot, will not do, is duplicate the conditions which will allow our future to recreate those fading memories.

Why do our suburbanites cling so tightly to those images, more tightly than the in-town dweller, and yet not do anything that would bring reality to those memories? It may be that those who live within walking distance of downtown, and for some that varies, believe that they currently have such memories – as a reality. To them I say, your lack of action may allow your reality to quickly dissolve into equally fading images, so be vigilant and active in order to retain them.

Across town, Richmond Road has also seen its share of shifting or moving uses. From the major grocery chains moving farther out of town, while gaining up to 50% in floor area each time to the smaller structures designed specifically for fast food retailers, flipping from one chain to another. It is the rarity that any retailer will become so synonymous with the road or a neighborhood out there.

I believe that in no time before the aforementioned shift in our style of living did the primary roads connecting population centers become the hubs of commerce. To be sure, in some regions, many small communities became established and incorporated and, in time, grew to the point that they adjoined each other so as to become a population center. It is only now that those connecting roads are commercial corridors. They do not compare in scale or scope to our recent ones and often serve to unite neighborhoods rather than separate them.

Subdivisions of today bear little resemblance to those of a century ago despite the bucolic street names and the nature related neighborhood monikers. In the past 50 years we have fallen victim to the silver tongued marketing specialists not only in our increasingly dehumanized food supply, but what may be called a similarly dehumanized residence supply. After giving that game a try nearly 20 years ago, I do not want to play that game again. They do not really want what they think that they are buying.

Wondering In A Winter Walking Land

Once again this winter I have taken to looking at the impediments imposed upon the residents of Aylesford and Chevy Chase. This area has been characterized as being one of the most walkable parts of our community. That is true, except when “ole man Winter” comes to stay.

I read a comment on Facebook from a friend, which spoke to her normal daily commute to work in Chevy Chase after a heavy snowfall. The short, five – six block walk featured one, lone, shoveled walkway and that was done by a church. Yes, there were sub-freezing temperatures and a coating of ice but people got out and walked just the same.

I also received a tweet exposing a downtown surface parking lot for having plowed the lot but leaving sidewalks full of snow to traverse for the remainder of the trip to work or shop. By local ordinance, the property owner or their local agent/tenant is responsible for clearing the public sidewalk within 4 hours of the end of snowfall. In Lexington, that is rarely done.

On my daily way home from work I usually pass through the University campus and they have done a admirable job around the main buildings and the like. On some of their lesser properties, not so good but better than the business folks who make their profits on the student residents. For all of the apartment owner who rent to these kids and don't make the sidewalks safe for them to get to class and back, I say shame on you.

And don't think that the regular merchants and property owners along Euclid Ave are exempt from the shame. The embattled Kroger Corporation should take a look at its Chevy Chase location. The parking lot was cleared and paths made toward the front door, but they are responsible all the way to the street and the sidewalk there was untouched. Even though they acknowledged that a large percentage of their customers from the neighborhood approach by foot, Kroger has done nothing to make their property safer for them. As they move the new building closer to the streets, will they continue to ignore the pedestrian along the Marquis portion in particular?

Many of the retailers in Chevy Chase shopping center did, eventually, do a decent job of clearing the snow and ice. The same cannot be said of the homeowners in Ashland Park where still there are long stretches of uncleared sidewalks, yet plenty of plowed driveways are plainly seen. I also noticed that ice damaged trees were attended to but not the sidewalks

Why is it that this area, home to many of Lexington's elite(and don't tell them that they are not), feels the need to disregard non-drivers? The doctors, lawyers and even highly placed city officials should know their responsibilities and the consequences of not performing them, and that may be the problem. There are NO consequences enforced.

The fines for not following the required civic duties of homeowners and residents are NOT being assessed. Why do we have them if they are not enforced? Why do they not carry as much weight as our simple vehicle infractions of running a stop sign or failure to yield? Perhaps the Council could spend as much time and effort debating this as the did the handicap parking issue, with a similar result of raising fines to not be collected.

I have only detailed a short 2 or 3 mile stretch of roadway and I am sure that many of you can elaborate on others. Walkable areas like the Southland Dr neighborhoods or parts of the north end all have the same problem. I just think that we should be doing something about it. The groundhog says that we still have 6 weeks of winter, so we are not done yet. And there is always next year still to come.

Retailers See Some Changes Ahead, What Will We Do?

Rick Caruso is a member of the National Retail Federation, a group which has been holding an annual convention for 103 years. This past week they have been meeting in New York City, with an expected draw of 30,000 attendees, their largest ever, during its four day run.

Rick Caruso is also the founder of Caruso Affiliates, a development company that owns some of the most profitable shopping centers in the world, including The Grove in Los Angeles. I would assume that Mr. Caruso knows something about the field of retail trade, so when he speaks – maybe, just maybe – I should listen.

Caruso, a proponent for open air centers that mimic urban shopping streets, says that “Within 10 to 15 years the typical U.S. mall, unless completely reinvented, will be a 60-year-or-so aberration that no longer meets the public's needs, the retailers' needs or the community's needs." He thinks retailers need to seek out centers and shopping districts that create community and meeting places similar to marketplaces that have thrived for centuries.

Why should the retail world mimic what has sprouted up and evolved naturally in culture all over the globe. Retail has always followed the population's movements and has never led them, yet today seems to dictate that one do their shopping by automobile. If retail is urged to replicate the urban shopping street, then it should be done as realistically as possible and as close to the customers as possible. That would mean – in the neighborhood – not on the edge of one.

The unofficial theme of this year's conference appears to be “Get ready for big changes”. The retail world could change well more over the next five years than it has in the past 50. Much of it due to changes in technology and online/mobile shopping. While the recent security breaches were not mentioned, the successes or failures in combating them will factor in those changes.

Surveys are reported to show that 69% of CEO's in the largest retail chains are highly confident in better sales growth, yet they were not as aware of the dramatic changes occurring currently as they should be. Perhaps many more of them need to go on “Undercover Boss” and not just visit a selected few of their stores.

How will these retailers be affected by the shopping habits of Millennials, who want stores close enough to walk from home? What if Google and automakers take great strides in perfecting the self driving car, to the point of not needing to park it – just call for it when you need to be picked up? Imagine that store catered to the whims of the neighborhood customers like they used to, what do you see?

A Look At The New Comprehensive Plan

The draft text of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan is now online. I am inviting you to go and read it, not only to understand the intentions of the leaders of our community but to also see how far that they do NOT go. I, lately, have been thinking about just how connected our city's residents are to those facilities and services that we use (or have available to us) every day.

The first part of the text is the list of adopted goals and objectives which are set by our elected Urban County council and are intended to be used for guiding plans and policies. If we have any beef with these goal statements, our comments should directed there.

Chapter 2 is titled Statements, Policies, and Data and after a brief section on the history and purpose of the plan document, a series of tables illustrating the current statistical realities of Lexington's state, there are detailed comments on what is intended to be done.

Right off the bat is the subject of accessibility. Some of my thoughts and posts over the last few years have been about just how much our recreation facilities are available to those with limited mobility. Here I do not speak of those with physical impairments like blindness or crippling diseases, but those who lack the ability to reach our parks and playgrounds with ease. I recently spoke of being able to access good, local food (or any food) without expending limited funds, time and energy to do so.

Below is that section to do with accessibility:

The 2013 Comprehensive Plan meets accessibility head on in the Goals and Objectives {A.1.c., D.1.b., and D.2.} and throughout the Plan to state without question that Lexington will strive to be a city that is accessible to all people in all areas of our community.  While we will achieve the standards set by federal regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act, and any other related regulations, we also value and intend to accommodate all of our citizens beyond what is required and set Lexington apart as one that welcomes all people to our city.

Below are goals which apply:

A. Growing Successful Neighborhoods

Goal 1) Expand housing choices c.) Plan for safe, affordable, and accessible housing to meet the needs of older and/or disadvantaged residents.

D. Improving a Desirable Community

Goal 1.) Work to achieve an effective and comprehensive transportation system. b.) Develop a viable network of accessible transportation alternatives for residents and commuters, which may include the use of mass transit, bicycles, walkways, ridesharing, greenways, and other strategies.

Goal 2.) Provide for accessible community facilities and services to meet the health, safety, and quality of life needs of Lexington-Fayette County’s residents and visitors.

Results of these efforts include but are not limited to the following:

• Good accessibility to buildings through parking lots and transit stops by adding through-sidewalks (or protected pathways) wherever possible and curb ramps to sidewalks and into buildings

• Access ramps into buildings above the minimum ADA requirements

• Wider sidewalks (with curb ramps to roadways) wherever possible

While the Goals and Objectives, as adopted by the Council, are worded broadly enough to include all residents of whatever age or disadvantage, the text and list of action efforts appear aimed toward the 32,691 disabled persons living outside of institutions who are currently covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act and its amendments.

Growing a successful neighborhood is not just creating houses which can be considered meeting the needs of those in wheelchairs or with facilities on single levels and such. It also means being able to get to adequate shopping and social services with out requiring outside assistance or excessive travel distances. Successful neighborhoods, like the walkable and desirable ones which developed closer to downtown, and ironically without strict zoning in place, have much of what is desired in Goal D.2, yet we are currently not willing to attempt to duplicate them in the rest of the Urban Services Area. That makes me stop to wonder why the definition and interpretation of accessibility is not as broad as the goal seems to imply.

Chapter 3 begins to detail how to grow a successful neighborhood.

Lexington’s neighborhoods are lively and diverse places with histories, personalities, stories, famous residents, unique businesses, local restaurants, and ethnicities. People choose their neighborhood for many reasons, including housing affordability and the test scores of nearby schools.

Not all of Lexington's neighborhoods are what you consider “lively” and those more recent ones not only lack a long history or real personality, but exhibit a strong sense of diverse colors of sameness. Local restaurants and unique businesses are seldom seen in many of our suburban neighborhoods but rather in the intense shopping areas which buffer our neighborhoods from each other. Many of our unique, local restaurants need to draw from much more than one or two nearby neighborhoods.

So too is the similar story of the local or nearby school. Seldom is the neighborhood school in a position to facilitate walking or biking to class without involving massive auto traffic, which only exacerbates said traffic when parents cannot rely of school (or Lextran) bus service. Often the housing affordability of the neighborhoods near a “good” testing local school will exclude the very ones which will make the neighborhood diverse.

The physical layout and visual cues that make a neighborhood unique start with its form. The ideal structure of a neighborhood is composed of places to reside, work, shop, learn, and play. How these spaces are organized and relate to one another influences public health, cultural expression, environmental health, safety, and economic vitality.

It takes a community effort to build and maintain a successful neighborhood...

As much as I take exception to the previous plan paragraph, I can agree with this one. Today's suburban neighborhoods are not “reside and work” or “reside and shop”places. We Americans seem to desire to work and shop some distance from where we call home. It is that organization and relationship juxtaposition that has influenced our public health, environmental health and our economic vitality, and not for the better. As yet the community effort is not in it.

Interestingly enough, since the discussions leading up to the 2007 Plan, actions have led to a revision to the criteria used to “create Great Neighborhoods in newly developing or redeveloping areas”. In that same time frame, we have had a drastic recession and a slow, barely perceptible recovery. There are no real, newly developing or redeveloping areas to speak of but there are quite a few neighborhoods, built in the '60s and '70s, which could use some help to become Great Neighborhoods. Should we really have to wait until we have to redevelop the whole area? Why can't we do it over time, as the “model” neighborhoods did?

Place-making and walkability are important to the success of Lexington and its neighborhoods. They have been for the first ring subdivisions of the late 19^th century and will be for the subdivisions of the early 21^st , but what about all that came in between? Is there nothing to be done for them?

Fortunately, yes. I will look over those possibilities in the next week or so.

The Fading Of Food Access In The Suburbs

I read recently that, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approximately twenty-nine million Americans live in urban and rural food deserts.

That definition means that Lexington residents from low-income neighborhoods have to travel a mile or more to a grocery store. With poverty levels being demonstrated to be growing in suburbs across the country, it could only be a short time until those food deserts become extremely evident here. From what I hear, our planning staff believes that it has already started.

It has long been known that the near north side of Lexington has been home to an almost ever present community of working class poor. There are pockets of more well to do neighborhoods but they are the exception. Many streets which once saw the fine houses of our city's doctors and lawyers or other entrepreneurs are now home to the apartment dwelling, lower class. Our ever mobile elite moved on to the newer subdivisions, chasing that American dream of living “in the country”or acting like it.

Today it is the pockets of poverty which seem to be growing in our cul-de-sac patchwork of subdivisions that we have developed over the last half century or more. Many of them began as “starter homes” under HUD's “236” or “238” programs and actually did allow young families to enter the housing market and become upwardly mobile. Lately, the newer, non programed, version of starter houses appear to be financial traps for new home owners. Their upward mobility is still stuck in the '70s.

Stories abound from some of the better known low income districts of larger cities, where food banks and food pantries see more and more of the newly impoverished. There are more than likely as many right here in Lexington and maybe you know of one or more. Retelling of stories and raising awareness is not a solution, changing what brings on or exacerbates the situation is.

I have long stated that “retail follows the population” and, up until the 1930s and a wide acceptance of zoning, the food market section of retail led in that regard. One of the initial retail establishments in any new residential area was a grocer or butcher. That is why we saw so many corner markets in neighborhoods and often in converted residences.

A while, I chronicled the actions of a retail business in a small part of a narrow wedge of Lexington. It was not complete by any means, but does illustrate what I believe to be a part of our problem. As I pointed out, Kroger Co entered the Lexington market with two stores in 1925, going up against a few local chains like S.A Glass and his 6 or so stores. Kroger had 60 such corner markets in Cincinnati at the time and there was no such thing as a “super market”

Zoning is usually employed to separate noxious uses from neighborhood or other community institutions. The corner grocery, church or barbershop beside a small drug store were the mainstays of neighborhood life, hardly uses that folks wanted to get rid of. To many, that was the embodiment of the small town life they left behind when they moved to town. Sadly, the regimented nature of zoning does not allow the time tested evolution of human interaction having replaced it with something I find hard to explain.

Grocery stores of today are required to fit into a specific “zone” and since those zones will also allow many more uses, some of them noxious, they need to be sited away from the residences that they have historically served. This, I believe, is what has opened the door for food deserts.

One of my favorite scenes from Driving Miss Daisy is where Daisy Werthan's son has hired a chauffeur since she had wrecked her car. Ever the independent woman, Daisy intends to do the weekly shopping alone until she discovers that you need to arrange a cab well in advance and walking to the store or using the streetcar have their own problems. Daisy is a well of widow living in a changing world and yet blind to those changes.

The Driving Miss Daisy story began in the late '40s when going to the grocery, though a special trip, did not involve a large amount of logistics. Store locations at that time were determined by residential units / population in a mile or two radius and the store management knew customer's families by name as well as what they bought. The grocery business in those days was a real service oriented industry, much unlike today.

A grocery superstore of 85, 000 to 200,000 square feet will require the population of 3 to 5 mile radius to make it profitable. In subdivisions containing massive numbers of cul-de-sacs the driving distance could easily be three times that. When neighborhoods like that begin to fall the poverty line our food deserts begin to emerge. Factor in the lack of adequate public transportation and the effect of the food desert grows. It begins to look like we either failed to plan or planned to fail, but we did it to ourselves.

Much of my observations and opinions here have come from growing up in a grocery oriented family. My father was a well known and respected grocery manager/owner during the '40s-'70s. Corporate marketing decisions have replaced the hands-on customer service actions of the old time grocery man and convinced the buying public that it is in their best interest. It is no longer about what is best for the customer but what is best for the corporate bottom line.

In an industry that made more than $600 billion in 2012, the corporate perception is that low-income people don't spend money unless they're at a high enough density, then there's a market. Our easily identified food deserts in the near north side do not approach that density. The National Campaign for Healthy Food Access at The Food Trust says supermarkets stay away because urban settings force them to rethink the shape and size of their stores. I think that we are seeing that with the Kroger on Euclid, but under duress. Operating in low-income areas, the employees who tend to live very nearby are less work-ready and may cost more to train and insure.

On the local front, we have our own group which is active in bringing better food choices to the low income areas. It will also involve teaching the residents of these areas how to make the better choices. Anita Courtney of the Tweens Nutrition and Fitness Coalition has initiated a program which has seen some success in other communities. Here it goes by the name The Good Neighbor Store (GNS) Network. They have realized that small neighborhood stores play an important role in communities and if stores can enhance their business model, it’s good for the community, as well as the store’s bottom line.

Currently there are 2 stores working to become Good Neighbor Stores, all in the East End of Lexington. They are hoping to have grand re-openings this fall:

• Sammy’s Market and Deli at 651 Breckinridge Street on the corner of Breckenridge and Sixth Street
• Pak-N-Save at 503 East Third Street on the corner of Third and Race

The Pak-N-Save will have a new produce cooler, new flooring and new exterior paint and a mural is to be painted on the Race Street side of the store. There are ongoing efforts to engage other inner city corner stores.

It is not all about teaching the inner city youth and their parents. Since we are seeing food deserts develop in our suburban areas also, we need to spread the awareness there. Mrs. Sweeper has related to me an incident which played out before her and to which she could not keep herself apart from. I will let her tell the story,

I came up to the registers and began to stand in line at the Kroger on Richmond Road. “I had a small hand basket of goods.  I believe it was a Friday that I had to work and I was picking up a couple of things for the weekend.  In front of me was a black woman dressed conservatively and wearing a beautiful headscarf in the style that Sephardi women often wear them. (And I myself have done on more than one occasion.) That was what drew my attention at first.

Then I noticed she was in distress, nearly in tears and trying to say something to the cashier. Her English was very poor, she was clearly a recent immigrant. The cashier was not really interested in listening to this woman, she was instead waving a loaf of quality (possibly organic) whole grain bread. The rest of the woman's cart was filled with fresh vegetables and fruits, organic dairy products, and other healthy items – things I buy for my own family on a regular basis.

There was not a single item of junk food in her cart, not a bit of unhealthy processed food. I was almost ashamed of how often we cheat on our “healthy” diet looking at her cart.

The cashier was waving the bread at her and gestured to the healthy organic dairy products and a few other good quality products saying, loudly and rudely, “You can't buy these.”

It took me a few seconds to realize the problem – the woman was using a SNAP card (the program most of us know as food stamps). The card would not take the healthy products. The cashier was telling the woman she would have to pay for the healthy items out of pocket. Total amount was approximately $30.

The woman was scrounging around in her purse at this point, understanding what, if not why.  She said she had no more money. The cashier told her she would take the things off her ticket.

I said, “No, you won't,” or something like that. At this point I was angry, suddenly understanding that this woman's purchase was being rejected because it wasn't crappy low quality food – you know, the stuff they're always griping that poor people buy that makes their kids fat? Well, that stuff is accepted by SNAP. Decent hormone-free chemical-free items aren't, apparently.

The cashier turned to me and said, “She will have to put these back.” And I said again, “No, she won't,” and I reached over with my own credit union debit card and swiped it through the machine before the cashier could complete the action of picking up her hand-scanner to remove the items. As I was putting in my pin number, the cashier said to me in a nasty tone of voice, “you can't do that,”

By now I was pretty much in a spitting rage, but I didn't want to make a scene or embarrass the immigrant woman any further than she very clearly already was, so all I replied was something like “Yes I can, and I did. Give the woman her receipt.” At a loss as to what to do about it, the cashier did as I told her.

She then rang up my few items with me glaring at her. She didn't speak to me again. That's probably a good thing, because I am a bit high-strung by nature and it's hard to say what would have come out of my mouth. It's not the cashier's fault the system is set up to benefit corporations who make sure their processed products are on SNAP's accepted product list. I'm sure plenty of money changes hands to make sure that happens.

I imagine it is also likely that the SNAP administrators put some sort of cap on product prices to make sure that quality products don't qualify. After all, apparently, the poor don't deserve organic, hormone-free, chemical free products.

For some reason, we'd rather pay higher prices for obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and other costs conveniently covered by Medicaid but entirely preventable through eating healthy food instead of the processed crap being foisted off on the poor by SNAP.

As I have said, I am the son of a grocery man. He saw his job as providing the best product for the best price and doing it as a service to his fellow man. I cannot see this ever happening in his store.

Growing Indoor Children In The Summertime

Here we are in the middle of summer - and I mean right in the middle of summer - and the kids are going back to school. Some of them got out a few weeks before summer began but all will be going back well before it ends. Even the “unofficial” end of summer, Labor Day, is three weeks from the real end of the season.

Summertime, as a kid, for me was a whirlwind stream of activities either in the park across the street or biking to other parks for events and, eventually, explorations out into the then suburbs. I often tell people that I grew up not on a street or in a certain house, but I grew up in the park, specifically Woodland Park.

I crossed Woodland Park twice every day while attending elementary school and most days four times, since they allowed us to go home for lunch. I can probably count on both hands the number of times that I ate Maxwell cafeteria food.

But summertime was a time for spending all of our available hours doing something with the other kids in the park, be they friends from school or not. After a morning playing games and waiting for the activities directors to show up, we would run home for lunch, then run back for the afternoon's events. Dad had to round us up for dinner and again after the lights went out at the ball field to usher us home to bed.

I don't see that these days and I can pretty well guarantee that you don't either. The days of “free range” kids is well over. On the streets full of single family houses which make up a large percentage of our city, one rarely sees anything but indications of children “living” there. Walk by on a warm summer morning and the birds will be making more noise than the kids – quite different from when I grew up.

When many households consist of 1-2 working adults and youngsters requiring day care, there will be little in any daytime activity. Simply put, our suburbs are pretty much empty during the day.

Daycare, now there is a strange bird. Daycare now has to sell themselves as “pre-schools” with many parents, since they are supplying the early instructions that family members used to demonstrate for free. Daycare now has secluded, fenced play areas, rarely exceeding a few thousand square feet when 20 acres seemed small to me. Outdoor activities at daycare may average less than 3 hours a day, depending on weather.

Is it any surprise that compared to the 1970s, children now spend 50 percent less time in unstructured outdoor activities? And the '70s were not the '50s of my youth. The average early teen, 10 to 16 now spends only 12.6 minutes per day in vigorous physical activity. If it were not for the soccer moms and the little league parents or the pee-wee football and basketball camps, that would be much less.

All of the blame cannot be placed at the doorstep of day care. Although 40 % of the kids in a British study (I don't think that they are that different from American kids) stated they would like to play outside more often, it was the parents who simply didn't allow it. Fear of traffic and a fear of abductions by strangers were the top two reasons given.

Can traffic be so bad as to fear the random careening auto sailing through your front yard? Is not one of the common complaints about our suburbs that cul-de-sacs and limited connecting streets are so prominent? Would it not be one of your neighbors who was driving so erratically? As for the abductions, statically those are done by non-strangers though it does happen it is rare.

Frankly, all of us kids roaming the neighborhood and playing in the park back in my day were being watched by many eyes, without our knowledge. With so many stay-at-home moms and the older couples moving throughout the area, there was little that we could do that did not get home before we did. Empty houses and neighbors who are little more than nodding acquaintances cannot do the same quality job.

When did it become necessary to be so absolutely certain of our child's safety that we limit their opportunities to practice the decision making skills that we should be teaching them? Could it be that we are NOT teaching those skills? Could it be that we are not confident in our teaching abilities?

I have heard it said that parents will structure their child's time so as to incorporate themselves into the child's life. The child needs transportation and support. Television programing and commercials add to the myth by showing the child playing one on one with the parent and not with neighborhood kids. What happened to the TV shows of old like “Dennis the Menace” and “Leave it to Beaver” or the cartoons of “Peanuts” and “Fat Albert”? Teaching, supportive adults / parents and the kids played outside.

Are We Planning For Real Change

Apparently seeing one of Google’s experimental, driverless cars driving or parking itself on a San Francisco street, is not all that unusual. So, can you imagine just how the widespread use of driverless autos might affect the city of Lexington? Would you be much different than the residents here in the late 1890s had they been told that horses could soon be a rare sight in city streets? How will you react when you first encounter an example of one?

With so many people working and thinking about this technology will our planners soon have to begin incorporating provisions for it? Most of our city's plans have been prepared as looking about 20 years into the future, yet history (our history) shows that our future is moving well faster than we have ever planned for. My favorite example is the plans to expand our former streetcar system in 1930 and within the decade the whole system was gone. Life moves a bit faster these days.

A common scenario for driverless cars is one where you don’t drive in circles looking for a parking spot because your car drops you off and then parks itself to await your call. From a current local viewpoint this is desirable since it is your car and you want it available when you need it. From the view of one from a more populous area, a taxi or car service can work better, hence the rise of Zipcar and Uber. 

For many in this country, an automobile is a mobile storage devise for their belongings and which takes them places.

Next, let us imagine that we will eschew the use of “personal” autos for the ease of use of driverless car services. The then common dream is that surface parking lots will become park or recreation areas. I find wildly unlikely unless it is a city owned lot and most are not. Parks are a revenue drain and not a revenue generator, therefore the bane of private investors. 

What do you expect to see happen to this property then? Can you squeeze a modern usage building on some of these oddly shaped lots without taking a few “historic” structures?

Shifting our attention to the streets themselves, many say that we will need far fewer traffic signals when both autos and the streets are equipped with sensors and can coordinate between each other. What does that do to the walkability of an area? Can we cross the street safely with out traffic signals if the driverless cars are zipping by nose to tail with each other?

On the one hand, streets can then be narrower if there is no need for on street parking, but narrower streets are a problem to some of our massive delivery vehicles. Until they develop a self unloading delivery vehicle I doubt that we will see a driverless one. Parking lane may disappear but the loading zone will be with us a while longer.

In our suburbs we can begin to eliminate the large expanses of parking at the shopping malls and big-box stores if the trips are made in neighborhood “pool car” which will drop you off and come to get you. (Kind of sounds like a circulatory bus without a driver doesn't it?) To what use will all of that land be put then?

May we also see the loss of the attached multi-car garages with their mostly blank panels or, worse yet, a gaping maw of an opening. Among many Millennials the auto as a status symbol is a foreign concept and it is becoming harder to sell them on it.

Speaking of selling things, how will they sell driverless car and to whom. 

It's no secret that car commercials are, by and large, fiction. Shiny cars roaring along empty city streets devoid of traffic jams. Not a traffic jam (or signal) in sight, just the joy of the open road for the driver. How can you get an exhilarating feeling if you are not driving? Will car commercials disappear like the cigarette one did but for different reasons?

How soon do you think that some kind of drastic change can come about? Above are just a few of the early changes that we could see should we adopt the driverless auto as quickly as we did the “horseless carriage”. Perhaps you have thought of something I left out. Drop me a line and tell me you thoughts.

Help See The Future?

What will Lexington look like when we get to the middle of the century?

Now, what did you just think of when that question flashed through your mind? Was you first thought of how downtown would look and did you wonder if there would be many new buildings? We will have to accommodate several thousand new residents, so did you imagine a wider expanse of suburban housing developments? Maybe you thought of a community where just about everything you could need was close and available, but I doubt it.

For those of you who thought strictly of downtown, I am not surprised because most people do. The traditional method of gauging modernity of a city is to look at its downtown. Progress is measured by the number of striking new and wonderful buildings. How many of them will we have in the next 20 years? Will it be more or less than in the past 20?

Actually, it has been over 25 years since a tower crane graced the skyline of downtown for the construction of a new high-rise. That my friends is a pretty stagnant rate of progress in anybody's book. What has been proposed has been fought, tooth and nail, by just about every faction. Now, with a few select areas gentrifying at an ever increasing rate and more people desiring to live downtown, will we make all of it livable?

Lexington is considered to be very lucky to have its most historic buildings in the the downtown area and the problem continues as to how to preserve them and allow new progress to proceed. We, and many other progressive cities, have arrived at our current status by both allowing and decrying the loss of our older building stock. How we achieve a continuing balance there will take a lot of hard work.

How we handle the way in which we travel to and from downtown will play a big part in Lexington's future. So far we have been able to bypass the temptation to follow other cities and their urban expressways that they are now removing.

Our surface parking situation pales proportionately in comparison to cities twice our size. Our closest neighbor, Louisville, leads the nation in average temperature rise between urban and rural land use environments. The difference between their urban heat island and their outskirts will average nearly 2 degrees throughout all seasons. Surely, we can continue to do better.

Still, downtown is not the only place that will have to make a change for the better. Eventually the close-in suburbs will undergo a familiar transformation from dullsville to walkable and inviting places.

I call it a familiar transformation because it has happened in Lexington previously. A number of well known retail clusters retain vestiges of their residential roots as single family houses.

Take the Woodland Triangle as an example. The initial Woodland subdivision plat of 1884 laid out strictly residential lots. By 1906, only the school, the fire station and two small shops (one at High and Woodland and one at High and Kentucky) interrupted the housing stock. It would be another 10 years or so until the commercial structures typical of the '20s made their appearance in the triangle and bring the goods and services the people needed. Again, retail follows residential.

Or, consider the beginnings of the Chevy Chase shopping area which developed well before the residential subdivision of the same name farther out Tates Creek Rd. The block bounded by Ashland, E. High and Euclid was full of the frame houses typical of the early 20^th century and some of them remain though greatly altered. Just slip behind the storefronts on the south side of Euclid and check out the backsides of those places.

How about the stretch of E Main from Walton to Ashland or Mentelle? At approximately the time when the school board built the Henry Clay High School (1928) several businesses were converting houses for retail/mixed use.

These three locations are barely half a mile from each other, in easily walkable neighborhoods and on the streetcar line. They are not by any means the only examples since the commercial cluster at Sixth and N. Limestone or Third and Jefferson appear to have happened around the same period. But will the bland expanses of Lansdowne, Kirklevington or Opengate have this opportunity of variety and vibrancy?

Current suburbs are an accumulation of the past 60 years of spread-out development standards brought about primarily by the institution of a zoning code. The “evils” of urbanism creeping into a neighborhood have replaced the “fears” of communism regulating the permissible options of a landowner. Our freedom from unnecessary intrusion has led us into a self-imposed isolation of sorts over a wider and wider area of our lives. Such a freedom has exacted a high price on society.

Some parts of downtown are still pockets of isolation but truly urban neighborhoods are beginning to chip away at that.

One condition that concerns me is the prevalence, since the early '50s, of arterial and other major streets defining a neighborhood boundary. These roads are the prime candidates for widening, thereby separating some folks from others rather than aiding in the coalescing of neighborhood vitality in a sense of community. Today's neighborhoods have no identifiable center and no community asset to which they can be solely connected. It is little wonder that we have transient owners with little willingness to put down roots.

Lexington is not just our downtown for which we need to plan a future. Lexington is a series of neighborhoods and they need to be connected and planned for too. So, I ask you:

• If you could make one change in your own community what would it be?
• What’s the best way for individuals to advocate for change in their communities?
• What do you see as the future of real estate and owning residential real estate going forward?
• How do you think technological advances will contribute toward changes in suburban infrastructure?

These and other questions were put to June Williamson, author of Designing Suburban Features: New Model From Build A Better Burb, it may interest some of you to look into what she said.  Other thoughts on this can be found here,

As always, you can let me know how you feel.

Is It To Be Or Not To Be --- An Urban Market?

Kroger has announced plans to not just renovate the Euclid Ave store, but to replace it with a larger, ”urban lifestyle market”. That was the phrase that Danny Lethco, a real estate manager for Kroger, used repeatedly during a gathering with neighborhood residents and interested parties. Maybe we just need to look at just what is an “urban market”

Though not exactly super markets, these smallish grocery stores strive to provide our cities with fresh food, meat and cooking staples within reasonable walking distance. Corner stores like these became passe after super stores like Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger and Meijer came to suburbia. However there’s been a new push toward walkability and sustainable growth within our cities and we again need accessible food in our urban areas.

This Euclid Ave. store has been called a "university store" and dubbed the "disco" Kroger by Ace magazine since it serves a large number of eclectic students in the overnight hours, but it also serves as an oasis in the food desert of the less well off of the 40508 and 40502 zipcodes. Many of them are faced with carrying their groceries on long public transit rides, buying a car or relying on convenience stores to purchase their necessities. Will they be better served by making this an urban store?

The confined space of a site for an urban style store will demand the right balance of urban design and will present some challenges. These grocery stores have to use a fraction of the space that super stores have, prioritize the goods they will provide and consider parking in an area unable to accommodate a super-parking-lot. With these challenges in mind, many other cities and entrepreneurs have taken the risk and opened such grocery stores. It may be helpful to examine how they did it.

First, I looked at the basic history of the seemingly ever increasing size of suburban grocery stores. After the sprawl explosion of the 1950s and ‘60s, supermarket chains have focused primarily on the suburbs. The business model involved rolling out the same store with parking in front, again and again. When supermarkets did build in cities, they plunked down the same suburban box whenever possible. This approach works as long as new growth is taking place primarily in the suburbs and the cities languish.

Kroger, in its history, is not a stranger to the Chevy Chase area and many will remember when it occupied the space where Shoppers Village Liquor through Josie’s sets today. Well, they even pre-date that if what some of the old-timers told me is true when I was growing up. I have been told that the now gone Ben Franklin five and dime, which stood approximately where the drive entry is to the Ashland Plaza, was built as a Kroger before they moved around the corner.

Kroger also shared the Aylesford/Ashland Park/Chevy Chase shoppers up until the late “60s with the Parkes Bestway (High St where Great Clips is now) and the Colonial Albers (on the Kroger current site) stores and a Minit Mart (now Sew Fine). I almost forgot the small corner grocery where Architectural Kitchens & Bath now occupies. Most all of them had good walk-up traffic until pantry and refrigerator sizes grew, working mothers and time schedules dictated a large weekly shopping trip rather than daily checks of what was fresh.

How others have succeeded

When looking at how others have succeeded, I turned to the Urban Land Institute and took information from their 2011 Fall Meeting's session on “Developing Walkable Urban Groceries in Mixed-Use Environments”.

Chevy Chase is very definitely a walkable, mixed use area, therefore I believe that their recommendations should apply. Chevy Chase is also urban, not quite urban core but firmly, in the minds of most, a downtown area and ripe for infill or redevelopment. Kroger is choosing the redevelopment path.

Parking is absolutely necessary. Nearly all urban-format grocery stores need parking, even in transit rich neighborhoods, and it must be separated from residential parking. Often, grocers require five spaces per 1,000 square feet (93 sq m) of store. In the substantially denser urban locations where significant percentages of customers walk, sufficient parking is still required, although the allotment can be as low as two or three spaces per 1,000 square feet. With the credits allowed for bike racks and the transit stop, I believe that Kroger should have this covered.

Pedestrian entrance. With a split between customers arriving on foot or by car, a key for the design of the store is to get one entrance to face the parking lot and the other to be an attractive pedestrian entrance off the street. A store’s pedestrian entrance is critical in an urban area. It requires a welcoming access point from the sidewalk.. Grocers don’t necessarily want too much exposure and light, as natural sunlight and windows can negatively affect HVAC systems and refrigerated goods. In this case, an artist will tell you that the northern light is more pure light with lower UV effects. Here, Kroger has shunned the sidewalk/street and the lower UV light by catering to the auto traffic.

Not listed by the ULI is the inclusion of a drive-thru pharmacy window for an urban market. Walkable urban neighborhoods tend not to need such amenities. Rite-aid, just a block or so away, has no need of one nor does Wheeler's Pharmacy on Romany Road. Just a few years ago the CVS proposal at the Main and Vine intersection went through a long, torturous struggle because of a drive through window. That project failed.

The location of the proposed drive through on this plan presents some really troublesome thoughts. Firstly, it is hidden at the very back of the structure and under the similarly hidden auto ramp to the rooftop parking. If that was not enough, the loading dock ramp is arranged immediately adjacent to the pharmacy window or at least close enough to present possible traffic hazards. Add to that the traffic movements into or out of the Marquis access point and I see a real possibility of a SNAFU or worse.

Kroger seems to have made one concession to their standard floor plan in that the deli will occupy a portion of the space usually reserved for the produce section. Ostensibly this is to allow the pedestrian entrance to the “relaxing patio” behind the transit stop feature. Of course this transit feature may be omitted since they donated a considerable sum to the “Bank stop” across the street.

On the idea of this “patio” or sidewalk seating, it is unclear if this area will be like the seating at the Beer Trappe, Bourbon n' Toulouse or Charlie Brown's. These cited seating areas work well in the mild weather, but are primarily used by smokers due to the city's ban. Will this really be relaxing if it is all smokers? Will pedestrians want to use this as an entry point to the store if it is filled with smoke?

One of the details pointed out in Jeff Speck's book Walkable Cities is that the frequency and proximity of a building's entries to the sidewalk/street will raise the perception of an area as walkable. I have not heard of anyone devising a rating system or creating an algorithm to chart such perceptions but one cannot be far off. Positioning a building up to the street/sidewalk, or even within 20 feet of it, gives a more cozy feeling to the pedestrian but omitting any entry options of personally relating to it or its occupants turns those feelings to dread.

Our recent snowfall and the current Northeast storm brings up a seasonal complaint of mine. Kroger is, by far, not the only scofflaw in the clearing of the sidewalks which adjoin their property. While it is their duty and responsibility, by being farther removed from the sidewalk there are many who will give them a ”pass” but it really is a liability issue. By moving the building closer to the street, it would seem to make the duty imperative, but if it is the side or back of the building, that duty evaporates from the minds of management since there are no employee access points there. The suburban stores will never expect their customers to be to the rear of their facilities, but in this situation it is where they are forcing them to be.

The larger picture

Just what is the larger picture? At least one of the audience members started off with the big picture agenda questions. “When this store is expanded, will Kroger close the Romany Road store?” Very direct and to the point but also quickly shunted to the side as too far down the road. So, is Kroger not thinking in a long term frame of mind? I doubt that very much.

The very positioning of the proposed building hints that they are looking at the older office buildings along Ashland Ave and the rest of the property on the block, though they stated that they “have no plan to purchase more property” at this time. Granted the PNC bank is unlikely to sell as they would lose their visual street presence opposite the very active Chase bank facility, but with the rise of online banking neither is doing the volume they once did.

Speaking of the Romany road store, is it so under-performing that it need to be combined with another store or eliminated altogether? This store functions as a reliable “third place” in the lives of the neighborhood residents as do the aforementioned Wheeler's and the several restaurants in the area. They have been woven into the social fabric of the families there for several generations. In my mind, the Romany Road store is a better example of an urban grocery than what is proposed on Euclid.

One last point taken from the ULI report is that “Grocery stores transform neighborhoods”. I would take that as both the addition to and the removal from a neighborhood. John Given, who helped develop a Ralph’s grocery store in South Park in downtown Los Angeles, described urban grocery stores as providing an essential element of street life for neighborhoods. The neighborhood grocery store, an urban market or not, it is more important to the everyday life of downtown than Rupp Arena or Keeneland.

To quote Seth Harry, an architect in Woodbine, Maryland, who has retail expertise “As long as walkable urban places are built from scratch or revitalized, more urban-format stores will follow”. In his view, the design of the store is driven by the urban fabric. Kroger may now realize that they had to rethink the placement of the parking in an urban location but it will still takes an urbanist architect to convince most operators to accept other design refinements.

Furthermore, Kroger's goals here may be diametrically opposed to both the purpose and function of urban markets. They stated that they wanted people to “buy more” when they shopped at the Euclid Kroger, but people who walk, bike, or use transit to arrive are not going to “buy more.” They already buy what they can carry. Kroger is using suburban thinking and trying to place it in an urban environment. That formula will not work.

There is also some question as to whether the very idea of acres of shopping in under one roof is even viable anymore. Malls are failing, or redefining themselves and Walmart type stores are shunned by the wealthier classes who would rather make trips to several boutique-style stores than one giant conglomerate comprised largely of products they don't want. Malls and superstores were originally meant to replace the old-world style village markets, suks and bazaars. For a while this worked, but shoppers today are more sophisticated than ever. They are not interested in fake village markets, they want real village markets – an experience that is simply not going to happen in any superstore or superstore mini-version. Quality, unique products are not usually to be found in such places.

So, an "urban" market?  Is it to be or not be, that is the question.