[sirkingwilliam]

Originally Posted by chadpcarey

SKW:

There are no legal issues on either of our projects (unless you know something I don't!). Snow White (owned by the Mauricio family) moved out a few weeks ago. They have a new store near IHOP by the Witte. They're moving their main plant over to West Commerce. We're a bit behind schedule on the issuance of our building permit for 1800 (no big surprise there, really), but should still start construction in April.

Good to hear. I think "legal troubles" was the wrong phase, but I did hear that Snow White was trying to fight relocation which was why the building hadn't been torn down yet. Check your PM box.

I don't think it's "foolish" to compare the US with European countries. If anything, I think it's quite instructive to look at the high quality of urban life in European cities in contrast to the pathetic quality of urban life in American cities. And I believe that projects like The Rim further a development typology that produces low-quality human habitats (per Jim Kunstler, "places not worth caring about").

I also believe that one type of development/building pattern is objectively superior to the other, and we ought to stop looking at places like The Rim (and Stone Oak, and Alamo Ranch, and Westover Hills, and Cibolo, etc.) and saying that those places are "okay". They're not "okay", and we certainly don’t need more of it. We need to make better places, and we're capable making better places.

Also.........I don't understand why you associate our auto-centric living arrangement with massive amounts of retail space. The fact that we have 10x the amount of retail space than the UK and France speak to our cultural priorities, which was my point.

Said another way - what if we reprioritized our use of public funds (highways and roads to support our auto-centric arrangement) and use of private funds (buying tons and tons of "stuff") into building beautiful, sustainable, human-scaled places?

After all, Europeans have had access to private automobiles as long as Americans have. But for the most part, they’ve chosen to live very differently……….

Forgive me for the soapbox rant. I’m really passionate about this subject matter, as I know you are! I'll check back soon.

I think you have me wrong in thinking I ant more of the suburban big box sprawl, I don't. I'd take a River North any day of the week over a Rim.