October 24, 2008

Superstore Spaces; Driving the Economy

By KACIE GLENN

When Wal-Mart moves out, what does the company leave behind? Along with customers and employees, an abandoned superstore's most visible legacy is a huge, empty, warehouselike structure. When another company fails to fill the space, the local community has to step in. In Big Box Reuse (MIT Press), Julia Christensen writes that "the reuse of these buildings seems unlikely, with their directly corporate associations and their aesthetically bland hulk." Nevertheless, she continues, big boxes