Building Down: Disassembling a Company Town

On October 3, 2016, two decentralized consumer-based retail stores merged when Bass Pro Shops acquired Cabela’s for $5.5 billion. Following the merger, it is unlikely that Bass Pro Shops will elect to retain the Cabela’s headquarters or retail store in Sidney, Nebraska, both to avoid maintaining duplicate headquarters and to target more profitable retail locations. As Sidney braces for its uncertain future, the city needs to address the artifacts of corporate, consumer-based urbanism that have resulted from Cabela’s presence. Instead of attempting to maintain, service, or repair the artifacts, a more radical solution was considered. One method for combating the inevitable downward spiral resulting from the loss of the Cabela’s headquarters, retail store, and distribution center in Sidney would be to adopt new forms, logics, and economies of subtraction. This would soften the transition of the community from its current state to a post-Cabela’s condition while mitigating the typical effects of decline seen throughout shrinking communities. A proposed framework for subtraction would embrace decline, allowing the community to shrink or contract in a more gradual and productive way. The proposed subtraction scenarios include sites, strategies, tactics, user-narratives, and a framework. The concluding framework takes into account suspending and evolving economies and flexible systems of organization. The scenarios are meant to bring about awareness as much as to speculate on Sidney’s future economic and built environment. Sidney provides an extreme case study of decentralized consumerism with which to apply potential alternatives to the typical pattern of decline.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.106.80

Volume Editors
Amir Ameri & Rebecca O'Neal Dagg

ISBN
978-1-944214-15-9