Salt Lake City lusted for a Crate & Barrel and got stuck with a crater. Haphazard development policies under former Mayor Rocky Anderson and continued by the hapless Ralph Becker allowed a veritable beehive of locally owned-businesses to be razed to make way for a Crate & Barrel chain store. The big box, of course, never materialized and Sugar House is left with a mammoth cavity.

Cottonwood Mall was pulverized for a similar mixed-use pipe dream, which disappeared in the concrete dust.

And at Trolley Square, a massive Whole Foods construction project gets iffy with the economy's continuing implosion.

Finally, two world-shaking, mega-projects — a multi-use, high-rise in Lehi designed by renowed achitect Frank Gehry and a cloud-piercing complex in Sandy (above) that city leaders promised would be "exactly like New York" — appear to have been aborted until deep-pocketed extraterrestials can be talked into building them.

To be continued . . .