To be fair, Maria Saporta broke this story first, way back on June 14th, but the AJC just reminded me that I still hadn’t mentioned it.

After being completely ignored by the Feds for saying “Yes, you can have the privilege of funding the entire cost of our Peachtree streetcar.”, Atlanta’s back at the Fed’s door asking for streetcar money.  But this time when asking for stimulus money, the city has shelved the more aggressive Peachtree streetcar line and pledged actual cash to cover a portion of the project’s cost.  From the AJC…

…the new plan, which calls for 2.6 miles of track from Centennial Olympic Park to the King Center, along historic Auburn Avenue. The project would be connected to MARTA and is estimated to draw more than 2,330 daily riders, including tourists and Georgia State University students.

The total price tag would be $72 million, with the city and Central Atlanta Progress’ Downtown Community Improvement District each providing $10 million, Borrero said.

My initial reaction was “Oh great, a tourist trolley.”, but then, prompted by CL’s Thomas Wheatley, I considered the struggling/transitional neighborhoods it would pass through and began to favor it over the Peachtree line.  But really which is better, a streetcar that revitalizes a neighborhood or one that strengthens connections along the city’s densest corridor?

Rendering of Peachtree streetcar courtesy of Peachtree Corridor Partnership

College Place, Decatur GA  (submitted by Paula)

Wal-Mart in the city?  “That’s unpossible!”, to quote the great Ralph Wigham.

Of course, nothing’s unpossible when a publicly traded company’s current business model stops offering opportunity for delicious growth.  Mmmm…growth.

According to this morning’s New York Times, Wal-Mart has finally gotten approval to build a store in Chicago’s South Side and has big plans – or should I say “little plans” – to start setting up shop in urban centers across the nation.

If Wal-Mart can succeed in the urban market, that could mean several hundred stores just in major cities like New York, Chicago and Detroit, bringing several hundred million dollars in additional earnings, analysts said.

To fit into cities, Wal-Mart is proposing to make itself more trial-size. It would shrink its stores to as small as 8,000 square feet, about 4 percent of the size of an average supercenter. It is considering formats that are primarily groceries, stores where customers can order something online and pick it up, stores where local business owners can lease space, and even formats like bodegas.

There’s also word that the big-box retailer has agreed to pay its Chicago workers 50 cents more than the city’s minimum wage.

So, here’s your noodle-scratcher for the morning: if Wal-Mart came before the Decatur City Commission and proposed to build the most awesome mixed-use property you’ve ever seen – of which they would be a part – and agreed to pay slightly better than minimum wage to its workers, would you support it?

h/t: Otis White

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