BIG BOX REUSE

America is becoming a container landscape of big boxes connected by highways. When a big box store upsizes to an even bigger box "supercent4er" down the road, it leaves behind more than the vacant shell of a retail operation; it leaves behind a changed landscape that can't be changed back. Acres of land have been paved around it. Highway traffic comes to it; local roads end at it. With thousands of empty big box stores spread across America, these vistas have become a dominant feature of the American landscape.In "Big Box Reuse", Julia Christensen shows us how ten communities have addressed this problem, turning vacated Wal-Marts and Kmarts into something else: a church, a library, a school, a medical center, a courthouse, a recreation center, a museum, or other more civic-minded structures. In each case, what was once a shopping destination becomes a center of community life.Christensen crisscrossed America identifying these projects, then photographed, videotaped, and interviewed the people involved.