Im guessing a shopping center at I240 and Penn

Belle Isle?

Anywhere in the central time zone

Not Belle Isle. Near Quail Springs?

Branson comes closest to being our winner. Except, my friends, it’s in the eastern time zone – Mechanicsville, Virginia, to be precise.
But thing is, all you plausibly believed it was somewhere here in Oklahoma City. So, here’s my question, leading up to an upcoming blog post: how much does this store add to the sense of place and to the character and identity of Mechanicsville, Virginia?

Answer: It adds nothing to the character and identity. National retailors could care less about local identities. But we choose to shop there regardless, don’t we?

It’s the geography of nowhere. Alas, we are very good about building spaces not worth caring about and tearing down those that are.

Well done, Steve! Probably the #1 best explanation of quality urban design that I have ever seen. Seriously.

This post depressed me.

This is certainly a leading question. No one is looking to tear down a downtown building to put in a strip mall with Old Navy are they? I believe the discussion at OKC Talk was debating the SandRidge Plaza proposal, right? Regardless of what you think about it (SandRidge’s proposal), I don’t think it quite compares to tearing down a building downtown and putting in a suburban strip mall.

I think these stores are bland and boring too, but this seems to be hyperbole.

Would you rather live adjacent to the strip mall or the same stores, just more pedestrian-oriented in a walkable neighborhood?

Brent, my introduction of this photo is in response to those who were arguing there is no place for community concern on how properties are developed. To which I submit this photo as an example of what we’re seeing all over America in places where developers and private enterprise are pretty much left alone.
You are absolutely right – there are obviously different issues to consider with the SandRidge campus. But I am curious as to how far people want to go in letting development proceed without community input.

@Nick – it honestly depends on the climate to a great extent for me.

Has anybody walked from Beatnix Cafe on 13th Street down Robinson past the building that Sandridge proposes be demolished? I work on 12th and Robinson, and I walk around this area all the time. Walk with me heading South down this street sometime and see how many wide open spaces there are where buildings used to stand. When you hit the churches around 11th street or the brick buildings around 10th and 9th, you start to feel better. Secure somehow. And then you keep walking and start encountering more open spaces. Then you go past 4th and you enter a steady, continuous, contiguous “street wall” of buildings. What Sandridge is proposing to do would severely compromise this magnificent stretch where buildings border both sides of the road. With a little ingenuity it could reuse these buildings to their and our benefit.

Jeff Speck in his book Suburban Sprawl writes about the 6:1 ratio rule: how the distance between the buildings shouldn’t be six times wider than the buildings are tall or any walk downt that street will be unpleasant–so unpleasant that all life, all vitality will dissipate. The street will become a thoroughfare and not a “place.” This “sense of place” is what we all want downtown: a vibrant street scene, with shops and cafes and pedestrians (and cars and cyclists sharing the road!). Anyone who’s been to Boston or New York or any other major city will know this is possible. A stroll down Robinson from 13th to the Myriad Gardens will show you the big, gaping impediments to creating such a scene in OKC–impediments which will only grow worse with another plaza to divert attention away from the street.

Steve, You could post a picture of an empty property in upper Bricktown to a blog in almost any big city in the US, ask where it was taken, and every one of them will answer somewhere in their town. So is bricktown part of the geography of nowhere because noone could identify it as OKC? The logic of your argument is flawed I think.

It’s not just the buildings that are being homogenized… Think about the term BIG BOX stores. You’ve seen one big box and you can probably walk into another big box and find the same item in the same location. Retailing is also being homogenized. The local flavor of retailing is becoming a thing of the past. What with the “quote value of scale” purchasing power that national conglomerates have, it makes it difficult for local retailers to be able to offer value so they better find some other way to differentiate themselves – hoping that the consumer will buy from them. So developers windup going to those national conglomerates to fill up their development. Thus the local interests and concerns are at the bottom of the criteria.

That is a picture of Generica!