As Wal-Mart threatens to walk, what's next for a dying shopping center? This is the city's plan: to kill the old Skyland, so it can create a gleaming new community in its place. A strip club and acres of pavement and decay would be replaced by sit-down restaurants and a 125,000-square-foot Wal-Mart. Now a high-profile fight over what constitutes a fair wage has turned Skyland into a political pawn, leaving the neighborhood shifting between bouts of defiance and hard-earned fears about its future. The D.C. Council's vote last week to require minimum hourly wages and benefits of $12.50 for Wal-Mart and other large non-union retailers has the company promising to pull out of Skyland and two other planned sites. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), who lives a half-mile from Skyland and has championed the project, has to decide whether to veto the legislation. Some of those most eager for the development - an 18-acre site with about 480 homes and a Main Street - say they'd rather see it delayed than submit to what they see as corporate threats. Others, such as Kevin Brown, 26, who has a looping Washington Nationals "W" tattooed on the front of his neck, voiced anger at Wal-Mart for not being willing to pay higher wages. But, he said, the area needs the boost now. "Something is always better than nothing, then work your way up," said Brown, who is jobless, has two kids and is training to be a dental assistant. People are looking forward to that Wal-Mart, they really are. At stake in the political churn are questions that could affect communities far beyond this tired corner of Good Hope Road SE and Alabama Avenue SE. After decades of raised hopes and years of court battles, Skyland was supposed to embody the District's vision for its future, a place to test the promise of the city's renaissance in neighborhoods ravaged by neglect and double-digit unemployment. Skyland sits in a place of contrasts. Just to the east are two-story brick homes with flowers out front. Just to the west is a boarded-up housing complex, its windows blocked with bright red panels. Just a couple of miles down Alabama Avenue, the St. Elizabeths Hospital site is being transformed into a new Department of Homeland Security headquarters. Keith Lofton, 40, lives behind Skyland and has watched the center's sagging fortunes since the 1970s. He works in human resources now, after a career as a guitarist and songwriter took him around the world playing with artists such as Wyclef Jean and Ben Harper. "What's really needed in this area is a lifted-up spirit," Lofton said. A higher-end destination next door will show young people there's more out there, he said. "You can beat people over the head with positive thinking all you want," Lofton said. The kids need to seeit.