AtticaFlinch

Sorry, should have used "reports" instead of "complaints"

That's the only reliable way to address thread issues and so that all mods can see it.

Again, are all "reports" treated with equal sincerity? I think if you want to maintain the air or impartiality, you shouldn't voice your opinion on the subject. Because what look like happened here is you tripped over yourself trying to placate a bunch of whiney snobby bjtches.

Oh please - give it up. All complaints are addressed the same.

Really? Weird. Because it took three mentions of this little bit of fugly to get it removed.

No, shut up because you are a hypocrite.

And pretty much everything you'd deleted was a response to that. Or a response to the snob that typed that. (Except, bizarrely, an innocuous post about Chuck E Cheese - Can't be talkin' 'bout no Chuck E Cheese on Haif! We gots important Walmarts to bash!)

Oh yes, that's exactly what I was implying.

It's certainly what you're doing.

What are your opinions on the Walmart again? I forgot.... Weren't you opposed to it?

Dissent squelched!

FYI - the removals largely come from user reports - we can't and don't babysit every thread and post

So, if I were to complain about something, you would delete it without any research? Seems a reasonable way to run a website. I can't foresee any problems with that.

Edit: DELETE!!

I will certainly keep your thoughts in mind as city council moves forward in considering this matter.

This'll surely bleed over into every old suburb in town. Perhaps the councilman should be reminded that not only should he keep your thoughts in mind, but he should also keep your future votes in mind.

That was such a condescending email. If I had the ability, I'd vote the bum out on principle alone. I think I may still be registered in the city...

Regardless of a person's views on this matter, how shameful that an elected official should show such disregard for his (or her) constituents.

Names, please?

Welcome to Politics, USA. Would you like a brochure?

Yeah, this does look like an interest free loan to the City by the developer. I am curious how the taxpayers get screwed by interest free loans. It's not like Yale doesn't NEED to be redone.

You're pissing in the wind, Red. I said the same thing like 30 pages ago. I even posted a couple photos of the barren wasteland that's dividing such normally rational people like the residents of the Heights. One of the photos, a tar-covered, cracked stretch of pavement, looked like it was held together by chewing gum. When I took those photos, I sat there that day and came to a realization about Yale @ Center. Traffic only ever picks up on that road (during non-rush hour times) when a train comes through the area. Otherwise, Yale is a ghost town. Yale is more like Sawyer than I'd even realized. It's Sawyer with an underpass. All you need are some presidential heads, and you have the making of Target 2: Electric Boogaloo. With the exception of Terminator and Star Wars, the sequel is never greeted with the same enthusiasm as the original. I wonder what would have happened had Walmart come before Target.

there are exceptions to every rule, and I wish you joy while living in the Heights!

One can never pass the age of pulling off skinny jeans, it's all a state of mind. At least that's what I tell myself whenever I put them on.

But, if you want to embrace the hipster without dressing up, or riding a fixie, you need to trade the wine and martinis for a PBR

Lonestar.

Well, not "instant" street cred. He has to kinda work on it a little here, at least. Everybody that wants instant street cred just puts a sign up in their yard. 20 years ago it was just the same, except all the signs said No Trespassing or Beware of Dog.

Or, "Please stop feeding rice to my chickens."

West End Walmart...not bad at all.

It's the perfect compromise. Now, Heights residents can take advantage of the low prices and convenience, but still not be mortally embarrassed that such a place as Walmart could be associated with their neighborhood.

Hi guys - I know this can be a personal situation but try not to get too personal with words with fellow HAIFers.

kthxbai

Did you have to delete entire posts? You should have exercised your line-item veto power instead of scrapping the entire thing.

Seriously, your taking this snob thing WAY to personal.

It annoys me more when snobs attempt to mask their snobbery behind civic responsibility than when they're forthright with their snobbery. At least with the latter, you know what you're dealing with. For a couple months now, I've waded through eighteen pages of bilge foisted on us from one side of this argument - all of them lies, all of them designed to hide their true intentions and all designed to stir our emotions and not our sense of reason. When one filthy justification falls flat, they trot out another lie. When that one doesn't stick, they bring out another. Very little gets me worked up, but discrimination and intentional ignorance are chief among the things that do. This misguided opposition to the Walmart have clearly demonstrated both of those qualities, and I've finally lost my patience with it. They're snobs, and if karma was real, the next inner-loop Walmart to get built directly next door to their HAHC-approved houses.

Righteous! By definition i am a semi-hipster and i live in the Heights! It can happen!!

If all it takes is a pair of tight jeans and some pearl snaps, then I'm a semi-hipster too. And I support the building of this Walmart.

...which is nothing more than a cheap personal attack. If I taking offense to that makes me a snob.... than SO BE IT.

It's inexpensive, not cheap. I can afford it since I got it at Walmart.

And, I'd supported my opinion, so if anything, at least it's not baseless. If you're cool being a snob, so be it. Just stop trying to masquerade your quest as being something it's not.

That's marketing, not economics. Would I be correct to assume that you, like myself, had a coach teaching that class?

My class was taught by an octogenarian who was too vain to wear a badly needed hearing aid. Concurrently, I'd just discovered that pot mixed really well with booze and that the experience was heightened while the sun was still out. Needless to say, on the days I actually showed up to class, proper communication wasn't the norm.

I didn't see this post till just now:

Actually, I know way more Montrose folks that have moved to the Heights. I dont know a single Woodlands person that made the move. Its not snobbery to be vocal with neighborhood concerns. So I assume you wouldn't oppose a sex shop being built next to your house then? You'd just be quiet because being vocal about it would be considered too snobby right, and I assume you're not a hypocrite.

A sex shop? In the age of the internet? Not likely to happen, but ok, I'll bite. There used to be a Zone D'Erotica near my current home, but that blasted internet drove it away years before I moved here. Now it's an Autozone, or maybe it's the Krystal next door. Either way, I don't care in the least. There's a headshop probably no more than a mile from my doorstep, but I really couldn't care less about that either. What really annoys me is having to drive through a 20 mph school zone (on a four lane road no less) in order to avoid the traffic hell that is 1960. When I'd initially located that shortcut to I-45, school wasn't in session. I MOVED HERE EXPECTING I'D NEVER HAVE TO DRIVE THROUGH A SCHOOL ZONE!!!!!! Bjtch, bjtch, moan, moan, whine, whine, etc.

One thing I find funny is that Target was on the same level as K-mart when I was growing up. In the past 10 years they do some marketing and store face lifts, and they go from K-mart to Whole Foods status in the eyes of yuppies. Target+Costco = good, Sams+Wal-mart = bad is just one of those perception things that plays out extremely predictably with the not-poor folk in this city.

I remember they taught this is in high school economics class. If you charge premium prices for your widget, people will automatically assume price equals value. Target figured out the perfect formula. Slap a coat of chrome on everything, raise the prices roughly ten to twenty percent over the competition, and automatically everyone assumes the quality improves as well. And in the case of Target, hiring practices, femaile promotional opportunities, geographic manufacturing requirements and vendor relationships improve. It's amazing what a little chrome can do.

No bigotry there...

Yeah, I dislike snobs. I admit it. I won't go out of my way to placate someone without a real grievance. The snobs in the Heights are useless idiots.

Edit: And, typical of Heights snobbery, you neg a post where I advise your ilk to do something to help the world rather than disguise your Walmart hate as something noble. Go figure. You're a stereotype now.

I don't know anyone from the Woodlands who lives in the Heights and to say it is full of people from there is like ... saying the heights is full of pesky hipsters, again simple not true.

The snobbery argument is still odd to me. I cycle through the heights and by one of the developer's houses everyday and to see the two neighborhoods and conclude that the Heights is the home of the snobbery snobnose snobs is silly. At least people in the Heights walk their own children and pets.

Is that the rubicon, whether or not you walk your own children and pets? Is that what divides snobbery from community activism? I just don't get it, with all that's wrong in the world, with all the places your non-snobbist energies could be put to use for good, you've chosen to latch onto this stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid issue to waste your time and energies on. Go volunteer at a hospice. Go build a house for someone less fortunate than you. Spend six months in the Congo helping people readjust back to normal life after decades of civil war. Rebuild a church in Chiapas. Dig a well in the Gobi. Go do something, anything, that actually benefits mankind. And please stop, stop for the love of all that's good and righteous in this world, please stop claiming that what you're against with this Walmart has some noble purpose. It's not noble, and you're not noble for pushing the agenda. It's snobbery, it's bigotry and it's vile. All these putrid moral and ethical justifications for opposing this construction make me sick. It's pathetic. You aren't helping anyone with this cause, and the very people who need help in this world are being hurt by it. Your insipid cause helps nothing but your own self-aggrandizement in your standing among your neighbors. You have no moral purpose, and you'll be first in line when the red, white and blues doors on Yale open for the first time. You're a hypocrite, and a hypocrite of the worst kind. You've rallied around a cause that you can't possibly actually feel a great conviction about unless you're a soulless snob, and it helps no one but yourself, which again, makes you a snob.

I think some people are confusing "walkable" in the urban sense with just plain not far away. You can walk anywhere within a 3 mile radius if you really want to. But nothing in this city outside of downtown is truly set up as walkable. A "walkable" area is one where most people walk to get from A to B, not where the few who don't mind the heat do it sometimes.

Montrose is walkable. It was initially set up that way. You'd think if a typically suburban developer was to want to build a big box store there, everyone would be up in arms. But, it seems that with the HEB, built in the Montrose equivalent of 11th and Heights, blocks from the Menil and directly across the street from a competitor, people are more concerned about riding elevators with the AWP gentrification crowd.

Then again, Montrose isn't as well know for its snobs as is the Heights. The Heights is full of people from the Woodlands who got tired of the long commute into town. There is little difference these days. It's just a bunch of snobbery snobnose snobs.

You do not live near the proposed Wal-Mart -you live in EXURBIA! Therefore your comments about traffic are pretty flippant as you will not be affected nor will you have to drive this area every day at differing times. Your continuing comments are just conjecture of something that will not affect you on a daily basis - therefore don't really carry much weight or substance. I (and I'm sure others) would rather hear from both sides that live in the 3 miles radius.

This petty argument again? Do you need me to repeat myself? Prior to moving to the 'burbs just a few short months ago, I'd lived in Montrose and Greenway for a few years, and back then I sure would have liked a Walmart nearby as it was a pain in the ass and expensive to live, and I'm still concerned with what happens in the area. Regardless, I don't see how that applies to anything having to do with my input or opinion about this store. Yours is just more Heights conceit, thinking this store is all about you. It's selfish. It's petty. It's a weak argument, and it demonstrates your overinflated sense of self-importance. As a resident of the petro metro, regardless of where I live in it - past or present, I've got a vested interest in ALL things that happen here. Your myopia may not allow you to see beyond the ambiguous borders of your neighborhood, but I've got 20/20 vision, you snob.

Heights south of I-10 is also a bike path, and while many people dismiss bicycle commuting as quaint or stupid the grand still-undisclosed modification of Heights Blvd could marginalize the bike path.

I don't see where this has happened. I think most people would like an increase in bike paths in the city core. There's an entire thread on it somewhere.

Also, if this really is a concern of yours, perhaps you may find it more fruitful to communicate these concerns with the developer in order to gain some concessions rather than outright argue against the development and get nothing. Don't be an obstructionist. Learn to compromise.

Supercenters are suburban stores and are not compatible with urban life.

You continue to demonstrate that you're not actually opposed to Walmart, but that you're just opposed to Walmart in this location. Do you really think a Walmart will diminish your cool street cred that much? And, your predictions about the deleterious effects this Walmart will have on the local traffic are grossly exaggerated at best. Why do you continue to mock the future with such blatant disregard for probability? Sure, the intersection at Yale and I-10 could become an impossible quagmire, the likes of which have never before been seen, and the damage wrought to the neighborhood and city as a whole may be immeasureable in real dollars or community morale. But, really... yeah, you'll see an uptick in traffic. So what? These things happen, and would happen regardless of what's built there. The only way to prevent that would be to legislate the crap out of those empty wastelands, preventing any future development there at all. And I doubt you're actually ok with that. You want something there, you just don't want it to be Walmart. Fortunately, the decision isn't yours to make.

As for your continued suggestion that there are more suitable locations for a Walmart development, how do you know those aren't also in the planning stages? Are you suggesting that you know more about retail development and store placement (beyond just location - to also include priority and time) than the ultra-successful multibillion dollar machine that is Walmart? If so, your arrogance knows no bounds. If not, you're merely a snob who doesn't want Walmart nearby. If there's a third personality option that I've missed, you've yet to display it, so get over yourself.

Also, the Heights is a suburb.

What, do you think it closed because it was making too much money?

You think those are the only two possible scenarios that would have led to the closure?

Heights Boulevard is a thoroughfare - but not a major one.

MAJOR THOROUGHFARE: Major, multimodal streets in urban areas (arterials and collectors) which are designed to complement and support adjacent land uses.

On the Heights Assoc web site, under History of the Blvd: "The blocks were carefully arranged, scattered open spaces supplemented the 60 foot-wide esplanade on Heights Boulevard, a broad, tree-lined central thoroughfare patterned after Commonwealth Avenue in Boston."

Commonwealth Ave. in Boston is considered a parkway and a thoroughfare - not a major thoroughfare.

You're right north of 10. You're wrong south of 10.

And which side of 10 will the Walmart be on? 'cause that's the pertinent side for the purpose of this discussion.

Attack the idea not the person. One of the basic rules of debate....

Rule number 2: stoop to your opponent's level.

Someone who lyingly calls someone else a liar blatantly doesn't deserve my respect or reasoned discourse. This person has already proven several times over that the stardard rules of debate don't work for him/her.

You are a liar.

Do you think this tactic will work where whining didn't?