The Guardian published a review of an interesting-sounding book, and I thought I would share. The review itself isn’t anything special, I confess, but the book sounds good. It’s not available on Amazon Canada yet, but it appears to be an overview of the history of atheism and all its different forms.
The argument against the first five forms of atheism discussed in this book will be familiar to readers of Gray’s excoriating reviews and the greatest interest for some will lie in his discussion of the two final forms. One is entitled “Atheism without progress”, that is, without any assumption that human beings can be changed for the better…The final chapter, “The atheism of silence”, contains a surprise. It includes a discussion of a nearly forgotten author of a four-volume history of atheism, Fritz Mauthner, who argued for what he called “a godless mysticism”. Gray argues that there is in the end an affinity between the mystical element in Christianity, which stresses that God is beyond words and incomprehensible, and this form of atheism. “A godless world is as mysterious as one suffused with divinity and the difference between the two may be less than you think.”
As part of my 50by50 list, I wanted my reading to take me some place different. While I read fiction in lots of different genres (suspense, thriller, mystery, literary, historical, etc.), my non-fiction reading tends to be about either goals / personal change, writing, or organizational development/theory. However, there was a story in the U.S. press about big box stores, specifically old bookstores, being converted into other uses, and in one of the online fora that I follow, the discussion of this topic mentioned a larger book about it – an author named Julia Christensen wrote “Big Box Reuse” back in 2008.
I was intrigued by the idea, and when I checked the public library, I was pleasantly surprised to see we had it in our system. I considered buying it outright off Amazon but it was $70 in hardcover, $47 on Kindle, and even used was $20, so free it was! 🙂 And so I signed it out and started plowing through it. The book is organized around ten chapters, and just for fun, I started doing what I frequently do with non-fiction books…I wrote a blog about each Chapter. And when I was done, I wrote an overall Book Review (Big Box Reuse by Julia Christensen (BR00115)).
Since they were just “chapter” reviews, the posts are not super long…while the book is textbook-sized and 240 pages, it was a relatively light read for each chapter, and the author included a number of decent pictures of the buildings interspersed throughout. Did it revolutionize my world? No, not really. Some of the chapters were throwaways – reuse of the land, not the building, or simply just another retailer taking it over. Not exactly “reuse” in my view. But there were some really interesting elements, which I teased out in the posts as well as my formal book review.
If you want to see the full set of chapter reviews, here are the links:
This textbook-sized book includes ten case studies across America where former big box stores – Walmarts and Kmarts – have been put to new use after the store left or closed.
What I Liked
I was drawn to the premise of the book as I have frequently seen large big box stores in Canada, anchoring malls and plazas, move out and languish empty for a number of years. Sometimes it is a short time and another retailer moves in. Sometimes it is a long time, and it looks like urban blight. Rarely have I seen much in the way of “good news” around these sites, and I was intrigued with the idea of a series of case studies where the stores aren’t just languishing empty, but have been put to reuse.
From a policy perspective, the first thing that jumped out at me was that the stores were not all empty because the store “failed”. While the Kmarts closed, most of the Walmarts moved to larger facilities…instead of trying to renovate an existing space (and losing revenue while it was being renovated), they built a whole new store, sometimes just across the road. Secondly, I liked some of the challenges and opportunities that go with the store’s design…they are primarily utilitarian empty boxes. Which means they can be anything you want them to be, except perhaps attractive (usually). Beyond these first two, some other issues that I liked were:
Some of the restrictions the former store put on future use when selling the land (lease restrictions to prevent competition for instance);
Local ordinances that were hard-learned lessons about responsibilities of the owner when the boxes are being built with a view to future reuse (accessibility, divisibility of the interior space, extra doors, etc.) or eventual removal if it sits empty too long;
The short-term reuse by other types of businesses (like an indoor racetrack) until the lease restrictions ease at 10 years and the subsequent eviction of those temporary tenants in favour of larger more profitable retailers;
The use of some of the properties as “land banks” to use the land for SOMETHING while waiting until the value increases;
The importance of time frame for assessing success as some of the reuses look great initially but weren’t sustainable;
The importance of interior and exterior aesthetics to the new users and the public;
The consideration of the location not just as a “building” but as tied to the infrastructure around it – utilities, parking, accessibility to good transportation routes, etc; and,
The potential for complicated types of real-estate deals in place to address if you want to reuse something – current lease holder, building owner, and a land owner.
I think my favourite chapter was one that looked at a reuse of a Walmart box by three seniors services organizations that co-located into one building, and the place was thriving. Equally, I saw potential in the reuse by a few Charter schools and a couple of other “startup” organizations who couldn’t afford to build their own building, at least not initially, but they could afford to lease a space, get up and running, earn some revenue, save up, and then buy the building, while slowly expanding their use throughout the space. A library project took the “challenge” of being in a big box and turned it into a way to engage the community (a common challenge to face together, which built support for the project). Finally, there is a chapter on converting a box store into a church, and not just in one location, as it has happened in lots of places.
What I Didn’t Like
I was a bit disappointed that the book only looked at Kmart and Walmart stores, as they all have very specific footprints, which would in some ways limit their reuse. Multiple sizes of stores might have more interesting reuses. I was also disappointed with the lack of other context – how does big box reuse compare to gentrification of factory districts, how do the issues that crop up with historic buildings compare with the issues of more modern box stores, how do they compare with issues when converting schools or churches to other uses? A couple of the chapters are throwaway chapters for me as they are not truly reuse. One looks at a courthouse that took over the space, but just razed the building and built something new; another only used the parking lot; and another just had other types of retailers in the space.
The Bottom Line
An interesting series of case studies for a common modern-day problem.
Chapter 10 is interesting in that it goes in an entirely different direction — not the use of a Walmart by another big retailer, or a completely different business, or a community group even. Instead, it focuses on the reuse in Kentucky to open a mini-mall of second-hand stores. Micro-businesses, in the parlance, or in this case, flea markets.
But with an innovative twist — a central check-out. All the vendors sell their wares just as Walmart has little divisions. Yet they are no competition for Walmart, so Walmart loves them. How many individual vendors? One store had over 300. The central checkout handles all the finances for them, along with most of the transactional paperwork. I think it is brilliant. Ripe for disruption, of course, but brilliant.
And the store renovation is as minimal as they can make it…splash some paint and they are good to go. Nobody cares, they just want an indoor space to sell their goods. The lower the overhead, the better. Even some of the original signage is still in place.
In the long run, however, the mini-malls are doomed to fail…once the main lease runs out, and the lease restrictions ease, larger retailers can come in, take the space, and increase the revenue for the site owner, just as it did with the race track in an earlier chapter. Yet, in the meantime, it’s a very different way to take over the space.
Chapter 9 is a somewhat starker chapter, as it looks at Chalmette, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. And it isn’t like the other chapters, as it is not really about reuse of an abandoned building.
Instead, it is the use of the Walmart parking lot — the only local place large enough to hold a small medical centre made up of a series of large double-wide trailers all connected together. Supported by non-profits, for-profits, religious groups, FEMA and Walmart, it got going in the aftermath of Katrina, and at the time of writing (3 years afterwards), it was still running, while the Walmart remained closed. Walmart even let them open a small pharmacy onsite to meet local needs.
However, what I find interesting and for which I wish there was more coverage in the book (admittedly, it is beyond her scope), is the description of how Walmart used its existing large distribution network to help relief efforts. Not unlike nationalization of some industries back in WWI and WWII, from the descriptions.
Yet in the end, the main reason for their use of the parking lot? Location, location, location — it has good transport networks leading to it, everyone can get to it, and it’s easy to find. The same reasons any user would choose the same location.
