NIMBYA: Not In My Back Yard Again

11 November 2003 - 9:00am

Gwinnett County, Georgia is leading the backlash against abandoned superstores.

"This is no NIMBY movement of anti-Wal-Mart crusaders trying to preserve a Vermont vista or small-town Georgia charm. The rallying cry in Lawrenceville smacks of NIMBYA -- Not In My Back Yard Again. Residents say the empty stores make their neighborhoods look bad and create a potential breeding ground for crime... As Wal-Mart's Supercenters spread across the country, communities are having to digest a retail twist: The same company opening up the largest store in town sometimes owns the biggest empty building as well.Wal-Mart officials point out that the vacancies are often just temporary. Other business move in. Cities convert the buildings into municipal complexes. Some of the big boxes are broken up into a series of smaller stores."

Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 11, 2003
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For the past half century we have been building communities for the wrong reasons. We built them to sell cars. This created all sorts of problems.