A judge holds the fate of the Northcross Mall development in her delicate little hands. She heard several days of testimony, and I’m sure her head is hurting. She’ll issue a ruling in mid-December. Just enough time to get rid of the headache and be able to consider the facts of the case.
The whole thing gives me a headache and makes me wonder if some people don’t just have too much time on their hands. I’ve only had the time to send a letter to the editor of the Statesman and found it was published when someone left a very threatening message: “Watch you back, bitch. I know where you live.”
I haven’t had time to do much else. Life got in the way. That, and making it to work on time (or some semblance of “on time”—what’s 5 or 10 minutes one way or the other?).
All those shrill people who stand on the street corners with their big, red signs don’t live in my neighborhood. They’ve never slogged their way in the rain across that damned parking lot with water up to their ankles. They don’t worry every morning about how safe or unsafe it is to cross Northcross without getting run over.
The whole thing brings to mind the concerted effort to kill, or at least immobilize another corporate giant: Google.
Yes, Google collects information from your computer every time you do a search. And if you have their toolbar installed, it collects information about every site you visit. And, yes, Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick poses some anti-trust questions. It could possibly lead to an anti-competitive market dominance.
Yet the shrill detractors are framing their arguments to the FTC in the terms of privacy issues. Their argument seems to be that Google is already too big and shouldn’t be allowed to get any bigger. That it’s invading every aspect of our cyber life. That, because it collects information from its users, it should not be allowed to acquire an ad company.
If you don’t want Google putting cookies on your computer, it’s simple enough to turn them off. And if you really hate Google that much, just don’t use it.
I’m sure those two idealistic boys who started the company never imagined the firestorms they’d set off.
And Sam Walton (“Mr. Sam” as he was known to just about everyone) would be perplexed, too.
If a store’s not right for a community, no one will shop at it. That’s the law of supply and demand at its simplest, most pared-down version.
And even though this is an affluent neighborhood, there are pockets of poverty not too far away. The Albertson’s closed at 183 and Ohlen Road. The next closest grocery is the old HEB on Burnet Road, but it would require a bus trip and maybe a transfer, depending on where you’re coming from.
Having a thriving, revitalized shopping center across the street will almost certainly mean that getting across Northcross ain’t gonna get any easier. But they’re digging out an enormous (at least 12 feet deep) retention pond that will be hooked into Shoal Creek at the extreme western edge of the property.
That should put an end to slogging through ankle-deep water on my way to the office.
And that’s what living in a neighborhood means: if you ain’t slogged, you don’t live here.
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