Despite a nearly 10-year battle by opponents, a Home Depot "big box" store is looking likely to be constructed in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, along an industrial stretch, on property where it would replace a closed but very similar, independently-owned store. The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board looks ahead to a possible last-ditch effort by opponents to get the SF Board of Supervisors to override Planning Commission approval of the Home Depot, and correctly argues that the project makes sense.

The focus on tangential symbolic issues at the expense of everyday quality-of-life concerns continues to bedevil San Francisco.

Here in West Seattle, a new Home Depot went in, where a gruesome K-Mart had tanked, on Delridge Avenue Southwest. Our family has shopped at this Home Depot on several occasions. We got a new toilet for an excellent price there, and I'm interested in some of their reasonably-priced, nice-looking light fixtures, to replace an awful, 70s-vintage super cruddy chandelier we've got over our dining room table, courtesy of some prior owner of our house. (Probably the same one who installed brown shag carpet in the family room).

Yet we haven't by any means forsaken the other hardware stores we most often patronize, one independently owned, one a chain. The "big box" Home Depot in West Seattle is appropriately sited, has provided many jobs, and has no discernable downside.

Just as small towns with "big box" rows along the outskirts need to ensure they also have vibrant local business districts (and I'd like to add that Yuba City, California was failing miserably in this respect when we passed through on Dec. 30th and 31st 2002), cities with distinct neighborhood commerce still need the occasional big box, well-sited.

Related Rosenblog posts:

"All Hail The Big Box;"

"Walk to Wal-Mart."

UPDATE: Up the coast apiece from SF, the City of Arcata's Committee on Democracy and Corporations has unveiled draft language for a city ordinance that, if enacted, would mandate a public vote on any big box stores (a.k.a. "formula retail" outlets) proposed there. Why....of course, that's it! It's local voters whom should actually make these decisions, directly, on a case-by-case basis. Especially when their city council is a circus sideshow from the git-go.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at August 3, 2005 04:40 PM