Chicago, IL. Residents Discuss Aborted Wal-Mart

Council should OK Wal-Mart in Chatham [Chicago Sun-Times]

Rosetta Prince gets giddy when she talks about shopping at Wal-Mart: “It’s just nice, and they have a variety of things. I love Wal-Mart,” Prince practically sings. “I would love to have one in this neighborhood.”

Prince, a 60-year-old nursing assistant, lives in the South Side middle-class enclave of Chatham. As she wheels a shopping cart from Lowe’s on West 83rd, she walks within yards of a grim, empty expanse of land on which a Wal-Mart Supercenter should be.

But Wal-Mart won’t be coming to Chatham. In a classic case of short-sighted politics getting in the way of people and progress, City Hall would rather turn up its nose at nearly 650 badly needed jobs, plus taxes, affordable merchandise and groceries.

City officials need to get real. The City Council, despite a thumbs-down by the city’s Planning Department, could still vote to approve the Wal-Mart. And South Side residents, Chatham Ald. Howard Brookins and anyone else who thinks Wal-Mart should come to the Chatham Marketplace at 83rd and Stewart should make their views known. Ask the people of Chatham if they mind a nonunion shop in their community, one that pays an average hourly salary of $12.

The city’s planning and development commissioner has rejected a proposal to build the Wal-Mart in Chatham, and now Archon Development has slapped up a “for sale” sign. Wal-Mart is moving on—to the ‘burbs—and don’t count on another retailer rushing in. Target, Costco and others have declined.

Without action by the City Council, Chatham falls victim to a domino effect of lost jobs and opportunity. Union carpenters lose out on building the $46 million, 150,000-square-foot store. Local entrepreneurs lose the service contracts. Chicago loses taxes generated from a projected $100 million in annual sales. And other businesses that might have settled around Wal-Mart won’t do so without the store.

Even in a union stronghold such as Chicago, the city’s second Wal-Mart and its first Supercenter seems like a no-brainer. But Mayor Daley is more concerned about preserving labor peace to strengthen the city’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The mayor wants to avoid the “big-box” store battle of 2006, in which he vetoed an ordinance that would have required Wal-Mart to pay higher wages. Since then, he has been making amends with the unions. Most notably, he signed a generous deal with the 8,000 members of the building trades union that guarantees a living wage for an unprecedented 10 years.

The Olympics could be terrific for Chicago, but it can’t be the city’s only priority. Wal-Mart, warts and all, would be good for the South Side. It means hundreds of jobs, if not the best-paying jobs.

It means fair prices and convenience, not always a given in many neighborhoods, for hardworking Chicagoans like Rosetta Prince.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, May 12, 2008