EVEN HICKORY TALKS ABOUT HOBBLING BIG-BOX RETAIL

You know you're in a changing world when you hear that the city of Hickory "is considering higher standards for retail stores of more than 25,000-square-feet." Wow! That vast wasteland of big-box-and-parking-lot landscaping has had enough?

"We just don't ask for a lot as far as our landscaping and architectural standards," admitted Hickory city council member Sally Fox. "We need to raise our level of expectation."

Ms. Fox is a big ole socialist, obviously.

But what brought this on? A new Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, that's what. "Lowe's is a lesson in that we didn't ask for a lot," councilwoman Fox said.

'Course, now that Hickory might be on the verge of asking a little more from huge corporations that want the right to blight and sprawl ... councilwoman Fox and her compatriots can expect the political backlash from those same big money interests whose sense of public responsibility does not extend past their profits.

Why, only last night Boone mega-developer Phil Templeton was heard to promise that he will now build something really ugly on State Farm Road, as revenge for the Boone Board of Adjustment's unanimous vote in turning back his special use permit request to build a huge addition on a former church structure in an R-1 neighborhood. You can't tell these rich guys they can't do exactly what they want to do without also suffering their wrath.