When a new shopping center at the edge of town might skim off customers from existing businesses, how far can a planning department go to protect against "urban decay"?

Where is Robert Bruegemann when you need him?

A few years back, Bruegmann wrote Sprawl: A Compact History, an exaltation of low-density growth. It called for cities to double-down on all the conventions and mistakes of the previous 50 years. It was a disturbingly anachronistic, but it was provocative, and it was passionate.

It seems that these days there's still plenty of in urbanist literature, but, for better or worse, provocation is getting harder to come by.

Citizens for Open Government v. City of Lodi involves the consolidation of three separate actions revolving around the City of Lodi's approval of a conditional use permit (CUP) for a shopping center to be anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

For years, major cities, especially in California, have held their ground in what some consider an unwelcome onslaught by Walmart stores and their like. In the City of San Diego, however, Walmart has been making one of its most significant plays yet in attempting to establish itself in urban California. Its recent announcement of its intention to build up to a dozen stores comes amid a political battle that has raged for a half-decade.