Morning Metro: Santa-Copter, City of DeKalb, and the Walking Dead Town of “Woodbury”
Decatur Metro | December 3, 2012 | 10:30 am- Back in 1960s, Santa arrived by helicopter in Decatur [Next Stop]
- “City of DeKalb would be at a disadvantage” [Crossroads]
- A well designed, quick reference guide to DeKalb cityhood [CHCA]
- Good Growth DeKalb plans lawsuit against Suburban Plaza Walmart [Patch]
- Los Angles offering to replace residents’ lawns with rain gardens for no charge [WSJ]
- Senoia, GA, which plays “Woodbury” in The Walking Dead, avoids shrinking tax base thanks to Hollywood [NYT]
From Good Growth DeKalb’s website:
“Super centers and big box stores have nothing to do with smart urban growth – and everything to do with the outdated model of a car-reliant shopping center.”
Also from the website, a few of the stores posted to the “vision board” which would presumably draw no protests from GGD:
Trader Joe’s
Whole Foods
Half-Moon Outfitters
REI
My favorite thing on the Vision Board page is the “Mid-Century Modern” bullet, which advocates some kind of fever dream featuring Mad Men and sleek ottomans, streetcars, vintage carousels and ice cream parlors. BTW, does anybody know exactly when Suburban Plaza opened? If it was prior to 3/3/59 (when Lenox Square opened to the public), then I’ll give ’em the claim that SP was “the first shopping center in metro Atlanta.” (Wouldn’t ordinarily quibble so, but something about GGD’s demeanor just invites it.)
It wasn’t the first shopping center in Atlanta, not even close. The grocery store (The Big Apple) opened first, maybe 1959, but the rest of the center definitely opened in 1960. North Decatur Plaza opened around 1947 as did the one with the FedEx store. Twin Oaks in Avondale also opened in the 40’s. The other little stretch of the facts, “Neighbors remember when people took the streetcar from downtown Atlanta to shop at Belk’s.” First, there wasn’t a streetcar line at Suburban Plaza and second, the last streetcar in Atlanta stopped service in 1949.
Maybe they don’t know Trader Joe’s is owned by a really large, German company….
How about a Woolco?
I guess not, Brad. Also hard to determine that Whole Foods is not a local business. With my extra special internet research skilz, though, I was able to find out that it’s a large corporation with a market cap of $17 billion.
Maybe you can teach me some more of your google-fu, sensei… Can you help me determine if GGD is pro-growth or just against WMT because well it is WMT?
I don’t see Whole Foods coming to Decatur when it already has two stores within a few miles of the city.
That + a Dekalb Farmer’s Market that has the vision, real estate, suppliers, capital and plan to become about the size of Hartsfield about 5 minutes away. While I appreciate folks taking big risks with investments, I’d steer clear if I was them as well.
Can’t believe no one is mentioning the really hot items in Morning Metro: 1)Santa-copter! (Now he’d probably come by Segway or scooter) and 2) If I lived in LA, the city would replace my lawn with a rain garden for free! Can we annex Los Angeles?
Santa via subway? (Keep it green!)
Or bicycle? GreenBelt to Path? (The green sharrows work with the Xmas motiff!)
Or Prius? (There are literally (proper use) 8 on my street)
Or street car/trolley? (Clairmont corridor would lead right to the old courthouse. Just a short walk to LIttle Shop of Stories.)