It’s heartening to see a small community like Hercules fight off the Wal-Mart Schlockization of their town.

Hercules is making a concerted effort to try something new.  They are trying to have a REAL community using smart urban planning that is pedestrian friendly and based around small commercial businesses. 

God forbid Wal-Mart is being denied the opportunity to wreck yet another downtown commercial district.

Just what America needs, another automobile wasteland centered on a giant ugly box of minimum wage employee’s selling cheap junk made in Asian sweat-shops.

Boo Hoo, I’m sure Wal-Mart can find some other small town to destroy.

From SFGATE.COM:

Hercules raises stakes in Wal-Mart standoff City may try eminent domain to take land

Leave it to a small East Bay city named Hercules to go toe-to-toe with Wal-Mart.

No other city in America has considered standing up to the nation’s largest retailer quite like the bedroom community of 24,000 on the Contra Costa County shore that is named for the Greek mythological hero and was once home to a major dynamite plant.

While other cities have rejected Wal-Mart store proposals, the Hercules City Council is to vote Tuesday on whether to begin eminent domain proceedings to forcibly take 17.27 acres from the company, which wants to put a big-box store near an upscale new residential neighborhood next to San Pablo Bay.

(more here)