There are all kinds of ironies in the efforts of a San Francisco suburb to block Wal-Mart from building a gargantuan discount store in its midst. There's the city's name, of course. It's hercules. But it gets much better. Mighty Hercules plans to stop Wal-Mart by seizing the land it wants to build on. Reason: To the city council's eye, a Wal-Mart store is "urban blight."

Background: Hercules (population 23,000) is a city that knows its own mind. It has a New Urbanist development plan (mixed use, elaborate design details, walkable neighborhoods) drawn up with extensive citizen consultation for the area Wal-Mart wants to build - and dropping a giant store in the middle of things does not fit the plan. Not that Hercules is against retail. On the contrary, it has long planned for the 17-acre site to be a neighborhood shopping center, but with lots of small stores, not one giant discounter.

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