The ridiculous sprawl around Richmond

Can we please get some restraint on the ridiculous, and unnecessary sprawl surrounding the city of Richmond? I heard the other day from a friend that there are plans to build two new malls in the suburbs of Richmond, adding to the already incredibly over saturated retail market here.

I held off on writing about it because I wasn't sure how much (if any) truth there was behind it. However, tonight on the local CBS affiliate, WTVR CBS 6 it was confirmed that there is indeed a plan to build two new malls in the area. They showed a brief interview with a representative for The Richmond Retail Merchants Association (an advocate for the Richmond retail community) who is even opposed to the insane plan, pointing out this interesting (and disturbing) fact:

In the United States, on average, there is about 20 square feet of retail space per person. The average for the Richmond metro area is OVER tripled that, at about 67 square FEET OF RETAIL SPACE FOR EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD!

This is absurd, especially since walking around local malls (on the rare occasion that I go to them), makes me believe that some retailers aren't having an easy time of things! It seems like many stores (especially the smaller ones) do not stay open long, and at Short Pump Town Center (despite their blatant LIE claiming otherwise) I can't help but notice there are A LOT OF EMPTY SUITES, from where a business has packed up and left the mall (presumably due to a lack of business).

While SOME growth clearly CAN be a good thing, UNNECESSARY GROWTH NEVER IS! Richmond CANNOT support all of this retail. Not only that, but when either new homes, or retail centers are thrown up hastily, and/or in areas where they are not needed, in time, the building becomes empty, or unkempt, and the area becomes essentially a SLUM, which will no doubt happen to Short Pump, and other suburbs within the next 10 years.

Besides that, there is of course the fact that such massive sprawl is extremely detrimental to the environment.

I realize that the Richmond metro area is sort of an exception to the general rule that the city be the CENTER of a region, because most everything here is focused on our over sized suburbs (however, 'downtown' Richmond IS growing rapidly with over 2 dozen construction projects in the works, and the wonderful expansion to the VCU campus), BUT, we seriously need to get some restraint on all of the excessive, and unnecessary sprawl of the suburbs.