Austin Contrarian

The Congress Avenue Incumbent Subsidy Fund

Mayor Wynn and company believe we need a Congress Avenue Retail Retention and Enhancement Fund:

They plan to create a fund to support and attract shops, restaurants and other businesses on Congress Avenue from Town Lake to the Capitol. The money would come from a portion of the development fees for new Congress Avenue projects.

"We want to make it where there is a fighting chance for more tenants to stay, and thrive, rather than move away," said Mayor Will Wynn, who is supporting the program along with City Council Members Betty Dunkerley and Mike Martinez.

At its Jan. 11 meeting, the City Council is expected to direct the city manager to develop the program. Many details must be worked out, including establishing criteria for businesses that would qualify for help and deciding what fees would go into the fund.

My first reaction to this was, "Huh?"  Retail shops and restaurants are doing just fine on Congress.  The article corroborates this:  The manager of Keepers, a clothing store at Fifth and Congress, says it's posted double-digit gains since opening last year.   

Las Manitas is moving

Here.

Don't hate Wal-Mart

M1EK has posted the reasons he hates Wal-Mart:

Wal-Mart are definitely bad guys. They have done very little good, and most of the good they did do was way back in the mists of time when Sam Walton was pretty new to the job.

It's a common sentiment, at least in Austin, at least among people who troll the local blogs.  (There's a representative sample here.)

People who bash Wal-Mart take the bad and leave the good.  You have to take both.

Another take on Wal-Mart

From Sybil's Star.

P.S.  To be fair, I think a lot of the local anti-Wal-Mart crowd would not be caught dead in one.  Really, they don't have to sacrifice too much by shopping elsewhere, as long as a Wal-Mart's within range.  Wal-Mart has driven prices down across the board.  They benefit even if they've never set foot in one.

Gnomes and Wall-Mart

Two South Park episodes for those of us on the "wrong" side of the Northcross/big-box/Las Manitas debate:

Gnomes (download available from AOL video).  The townspeople crusade to save the local coffee shop from an evil "Harbucks."  (Here's the episode's Wikipedia entry.  Here's a straight-faced deconstruction by a University of Virginia English professor.)

Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes (complete episode).  A "Wall-Mart" opens in South Park, wipes out local businesses, and sparks a, uh, "backlash" by the townspeople.  (Warning:  this one's scatty even for South Park.)  Stone and Parker don't reveal their take until the last minute.

Slanted media

An analysis by a couple of Chicago economists finds that newspapers and other media outlets slant their coverage to match their audience's views -- i.e., they don't make opinions; they follow them.  The authors also argue that this is a business strategy aimed at maximizing profits.

I guess I will resign myself to the Chronicle's one-sided coverage of zoning/land use disputes, such as here and here.  It must be giving its readers what they want.  I'm just surprised that it has so many readers with a suburban taste in housing.

(BTW, the Statesman is not any better.)