After decades of just saying no to new retail, particularly big national retailers, Chapel Hill has suddenly realized that exporting all that sales tax to Durham wasn’t such a smart idea after all. Ironically, some of the very same people who so fiercely fought new stores in the past now say the solution to bringing back that retail is to ban new housing. The theory goes, we should zone every last available area we have exclusively for commercial development to get our sales tax back.

The latest manifestation of this theory involves The Edge, the proposed development on Eubanks Road at I-40 and NC-86. “We don’t need a mix of homes, offices and stores there,” some contend, “We need 100% retail, like a Target or a Costco.”

Bad news, folks:  Target and Costco aren’t interested in The Edge.  These businesses look for locations where they’ll attract the most new customers for their investment. Go north or west of The Edge, however, and hardly anybody lives there; and thanks to the rural buffer we enacted to stop suburban sprawl, hardly anybody ever will. Target and Costco open stores in the center of populated areas, not the edge, and no zoning action our town council could take will change this business reality.

Chapel Hill already has areas zoned and ready for new retail today. The problem is, the stores we want aren’t interested in those locations, either. When our department store left University Mall, Target didn’t come. When Borders Books closed, we got a UNC Healthcare office. Some will blame developers, but just as you can’t pass a law to make Target come to town, you can’t make a store sign a lease for a location they simply don’t want.

The fact is, an increasing percentage of today’s shoppers want something different than Chapel Hill’s aging suburban retail environment. Increasingly, they’re rejecting those old suburban shopping centers in favor of places reminiscent of the traditional downtown areas America abandoned for suburbia half a century ago. Today’s retail customer increasingly wants to stroll down a sidewalk, not dodge cars across a parking lot.

As Rick Caruso, CEO of developer Caruso Affiliated pointed out on public radio’s Marketplace, “The most productive retailers and restaurateurs are all on streets, anywhere in the world. There isn’t a mall in New York City that does better than Madison Avenue or 5th Avenue… It taps into the natural rhythm of how we all live.”

One reason stores want mixed-use locations is because they have a built in customer base living right above their stores. Walking down the block to shop or dine is a lot easier than driving across town, after all. However, businesses are also seeing that lots of other people who don’t live within walking distance will come and shop there too, attracted to the vibrancy that thoughtfully designed communities create.

Don’t believe times are changing?  Go to the Weaver Street Lawn in downtown Carrboro on a Saturday afternoon and notice how many folks are there. Then, go to University Mall or Ram’s Plaza. No wonder Cameron’s left Chapel Hill for the new 300 East Main in Carrboro.

Yet some in Chapel Hill still stick to the outdated belief that an area can only be 100% commercial, in the form of a strip mall, or 100% residential, in the form of a subdivision. Why? That’s exactly the wrong thinking to bring businesses back to Chapel Hill.

Yes, we do have a sales tax crisis in Chapel Hill. And yes, town leaders need to make dramatically different decisions than the “just say no” policies of past decades to fix it. However, we’re not going to bring back businesses by banning new housing. To attract more stores, we must create places that attract more people. That requires a holistic approach to creating communities where people want to shop, work—and yes—live.

Fortunately, thinking holistically is something the deep-thinking citizens of Chapel Hill do well.

In the meantime, when someone suggests that banning new housing will somehow bring in national retailers, remember: keeping new residents out won’t bring new stores in, especially in locations they don’t believe will attract enough shoppers.

The Costco Fairy isn’t coming to save us.