New and Old #258
Zoning and preemption, the quiet death of Sears, the challenges of "suburban retrofit," and left-wing cartoons
This is an older but interesting article:
Republicans in Florida have often supported deregulation and local control, but not in this case. Two Republican lawmakers representing Gainesville in the state legislature oppose the city’s deregulatory approach to housing, which Hawkins describes as “sort of a role reversal.”
In fact, a 2011 Republican deregulatory push stripped state administrators of their power to review local comprehensive plans for compliance with state standards — precisely the kind of regulation that state Republicans could have used to shut down zoning changes like those they now oppose in Gainesville.
There’s basically this weird dynamic where localities have almost total control over land use as long as they’re making it harder to build things. But that local control is suddenly compromised when they want to reform their own zoning. It can be this, where states try to oppose it, or it can be lawsuits brought against cities, as happened in Alexandria and Arlington in Virginia. But it’s weird that local control only seems to go one way.
Jeremy Levine shared this story too and added this interesting point with regard to preemption:
An interesting case study illustrating how state preemption of local housing laws can backfire: State Republicans in Florida successfully fought to reverse modest zoning reform in Gainesville!
Gainesville, a liberal city in an increasingly red state, faced pressure from a hostile legislature after it voted to allow duplexes and triplexes in single-family neighborhoods. Though the decision was reversed locally, the threat of state preemption threatened the reforms from the start
However, the story is more complicated. Florida’s legislature has on net passed pro-housing reforms, such as the 2023 Live Local Act and 2025 expansion promoted denser housing on commercial property by right, reduced or outright eliminated parking minimums in many areas, legalized ADUs in single-family neighborhoods, and more. In Texas, partisan state preemption from the Republican legislature has consistently pushed the state’s blue cities to build more housing, not less. That’s the trend in most of the rest of the country too.
The Last Sears in New England, Willoughby Hills, Heath Racela, January 15, 2023
Brands like Allstate Insurance, the Discover card, and Craftsman tools began within Sears and were later spun off into separate businesses.
My grandparents’ home for more than 40 years in Willoughby, Ohio was a kit home sold by Sears. Imagine a piece of IKEA furniture that you assemble yourself. Sears used to sell houses that way!
It’s a shame to see great American institutions crumble like this. I don’t think Amazon quite replaces it, in any sense.
Primark was fully renovated and there is no sign that it was ever a part of Sears, yet on the Sears level, little has changed. Entering the store, I couldn’t figure out why there was what seemed like a temporary construction wall in the middle of the floor. It took me a moment to realize that the old escalators had been covered with drywall.
I’m not sure why the escalators were retained. Perhaps there was hope that Sears fortunes would turn around and they could one day occupy their full store again. More likely, it was considered too costly to remove the escalators, so a wall was built to contain them.
He notes that in addition to the tired interior, the store didn’t have anywhere near the stock or variety that a department store should have. It’s a wonder it really even works as a business at all in this state. Surprisingly, though, this store is still in business, one of just a handful left. It’s weird to watch a thing die like this, still kicking but with no chance of recovery.
The “final sale” vibe continued in the girls’ department. The only clothing that seemed to be in stock for girls were hundreds of winter coats in maybe half a dozen designs. Literally every available rack and shelf was just coats, and they were priced at $12.89. (The boys’ department was also nothing but coats.)
Weird and unfortunate.
This is an interesting student thesis, available in PDF from the linked page. From the abstract:
An increasing number of cities in Canada and the United States hope to retrofit car- dependent suburban areas into walkable, transit-oriented communities to achieve goals related to health, sustainability, and economic productivity. However, they often struggle to do so, because in car-dependent environments, wide roads and parking lots discourage walking, and because there tends to be substantial political and institutional barriers to redistributing space from cars to pedestrians. In this thesis, I ask why cities struggle to implement suburban retrofits, and what forces could facilitate change? I explain the challenge by analyzing car-dependence and walkability as two self-reinforcing, path-dependent design paradigms that exist in fundamental tension with each other. I label this tension “urban intercurrence”….
There’s some theory stuff and there are case studies of North American cities that have attempted some of these things. It’s an interesting read if you have some time.
Hey Far Left: What’s With All the Cartoons?, I Might Be Wrong, Jeff Maurer, June 13, 2024
This was a fun read, on the annoying preachy left-wing info-cartoons you’ll see on social media. You probably know the ones.
Related Reading:
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Thanks for sharing, Addison! My piece is from 2023 and I cite 15 Sears stores remaining. I believe that number is now down to 5. Braintree somehow still survives.