Paul Krueger correctly notes in his commentary last week that the new Home Depot in Mission Valley is a further commercial blot on an overdeveloped and traffic-choked landscape.
But his lament sadly is one that city planners voiced and lost seven decades ago when the die was cast turning the agricultural river plain into an urban mecca that overwhelmed businesses in downtown San Diego and in traditional neighborhoods like North Park and East San Diego.
The newest Home Depot — similar to the nearly three-dozen hostelries and hundreds of businesses throughout Mission Valley — all owe a debt of thanks to crucial city zoning changes pushed by developer Charles Brown in the 1950s…