Not all praise for Rebuilding Place...

Salesperson Karen Burch, left, restocks a shelve as shopper Voeun Svang pushes her cart at a Wal-Mart in Portland, Ore., Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005. Last holiday season, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gave Target Corp. a nice Christmas present: being asleep when it came to deep discounts and not being stocked with some of the must-have items. This holiday season, the world's largest retailer plans to upstage its rival, with trendier fashions and electronic gadgets that appeal to a broader range of its customers. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

There is a story about Virginia Woolf. One of her friends was remonstrating that she didn't have any good critics to evaluate her work. "Critics?" she sputtered. "An artist wants praise. Praise."

Anyway, this blog from Bentonville, Arkansas takes offense to my blog entry about the impact of Walmart on independent retail, using Bentonville as an example. My blog entry relies on an article from the Baltimore Sun from 2002.

I really really am not interested in having the last word here, I suggest reading parts of the Downtown Master Plan for Bentonville, including pieces of a National Main Street Center analysis from last year. While I do read such plans for "fun," I didn't have the desire to read this one... But despite that, there are some really really good sections of this plan that are worth checking out, in particular the Vision for Downtown, which breaks out the visions into six categories:

• Visions for the Eye and Heart
• Visions for Community
• Visions for Culture
• Visions for Business
• Visions for Getting the Word Out
• Visions that Engage and Excite

and the Visual Preference Survey Results, which strongly favor traditional architecture. And speaking of that last word, there's this, from the Situational Assessment:

Weaknesses. Over and over again, committee participants mentioned the lack of after-hours and weekend businesses as a serious economic weakness. There are very few restaurants and shops open past five p.m. Also, the dry county status is perceived to be a deterrent to restaurants locating in Bentonville. The mixture of businesses is considered to be unplanned. A strong niche market is not evident and the number of retail businesses is extremely low, with few specialty shops. There is also a poor use of the first floors for office space, which can reduce the level of pedestrian activity. Participants also identified the lack of incentives for businesses to locate downtown and very little help for businesses that may be struggling or expanding.

Note that I don't want Downtown Bentonville to fail, I just made the point that it's difficult to succeed vs. chains. And similarly, like I make the point that Detroit as a city is exactly what the auto industry intended to have happen to cities -- denuded of people, particularly pedestrians, in favor of freeway ribbons and car-centric spaces and spatial planning, chain retail expects and tries to ensure that traditional commercial districts will cease to exist.

Exterior of Walton's Five-and-Dime, a Wal-Mart museum and tourist attraction. It is the site of Sam Walton's first store in Bentonville, Ark. (Brian VanderBrug / Los Angeles Times) September 15, 2003