Stocks explains that large supermarkets and shopping centers have traditionally had quite an . A half dozen townhomes built next to a veterinary clinic in Lakewood were snapped up almost immediately despite an asking price of almost $300,000; more are planned. Overall in Dallas, The new Albertsons’ emergence as a symbol of the questions facing East Dallasites seems particularly proper to impact on the areas around them, and that developments like Cityplace, along Haskell east of Central Expressway—with large stores like Target and the Sony Theatres megaplex—were instrumental in helping East Dallas recover.

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“I have a theory,” Stocks says with a chuckle. “It’s probably impossible to prove, but I think people don’t like to live like their parents. That’s why people who grew up close in found the suburbs so appealing, and now you have their children—who grew up in the suburbs—moving back to the city.”

Neighborhoods have several lines of defense in maintaining their integrity; the first is zoning—helpful in keeping lead smelters and rifle ranges off of your block, but too broadly written to be of much use in preserving the “village feel” that Snider mentions. The next line of defense is the overlay, a more specific set of restrictions that can be used to establish historical areas or conservation districts—entities that give neighborhoods the power to determine more precisely their character.

Unfortunately, each historical area or conservation district is adjacent to one or more areas that are subject to less control—areas that make it harder to maintain neighborhood integrity: the Mount Auburn and East Side neighborhoods, the commercial corridors along Columbia and Gaston. Perhaps most sobering is the situation along lower Greenville Avenue, where homeowners along that neighborhood’s west side have been battling the owners of the Palace, a blues bar located in what once was a local church.

Perhaps most sobering is the situation along lower Greenville Avenue, where homeowners along that neighborhood’s west side have been battling the owners of the Palace, a blues bar located in what once was a local church.

While opponents of Albertsons don’t necessarily fear the kind of collateral damage that Kellis is talking about, they are worried about the fact that one commercial venture often lures surrounding landowners into petitioning the city for their zoning changes from residential to the more-lucrative commercial, so that they can lure other satellite businesses to the area and sell to them.