Wal-Mart Re-Uses Flawed Reporting Methods
In a report released today (PDF), Wal-Mart claimed that it saves families $2,500 a year. Citing generic drugs and in-store banking centers, the new report sings the “low prices” gospel, but it fails to take into account the hidden costs of having a Wal-Mart in town: higher taxes, lower average wages, and fewer local businesses.
In June of 2006, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report attacking the flawed methodology Global Insight used to calculate customers’ supposed savings. It is the very same methodology Global Insight used again in this year’s study. The “research” glosses over a whole host of problems the company creates, not to mention the fact that Global Insight - far from independent - was comissioned by Wal-Mart to conduct this study. Legitimate, independent reports not commissioned by Wal-Mart show that when the company comes to town, poverty levels go up, wages go down and small businesses go away.
From the report:
- A widely quoted figure from a study by the consulting firm Global Insight (GI) indicates that Wal-Mart’s expansion has resulted in $263 billion in savings to U.S. consumers. We find this to be implausible. The statistical analysis generating this highly influential result fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks.
- A robust set of research findings shows that Wal-Mart’s entry into local labor markets reduces the pay of workers in competing stores. This effect is greatest in the South, where Wal-Mart expansion has been greatest.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 31 comments | Permalink
Johnson City, NY. Board to Decide on WMT
Wal-Mart’s impact focus of hearing [Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY)]
The Johnson City Planning Board expects to make a decision later this month that could pave the way for a Wal-Mart Supercenter at a brownfield site.
About 75 people attended a meeting Monday night at the village courthouse for a public hearing concerning subdividing the site at 90 Lester Ave. into two parcels.
Developer Marc Newman would like to divide the site into a 12.38-acre lot for the proposed Wal-Mart, and a 1.287-acre lot for retail/restaurant space. The planning board also discussed the project’s environmental impact.
Planning board Chairman Gerald Putman told the crowd he expects the planning board to rule on the project’s environmental impact at the planning board’s next meeting at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25. The board is still waiting for the state Department of Transportation to finish reviewing the planner’s proposed changes to the traffic signal timing.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 11 | 1 comments | Permalink
Freetown, MA. Small Town Passes Big Box Cap
On May 5, 2007 Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart had filed an application to build a superstore on top of a former coal ash landfill in Freetown, Massachusetts, with rare turtle habitat, and millions of dollars of needed traffic improvements. Developer K.R. Rezendes proposed a Fly Ash Landfill Redevelopment on 81.38 acres, which operated until 2002, when it ceased accepting and disposing of coal ash. 80% of the landfill has been capped, and the remaining 20% uncapped landfill will be filled over as part of the “Payne’s Crossing” project. This huge retail project will create 40 acres of impervious surface area. It also contains nearly 10 acres of bordering vegetated wetlands, and nesting habitat for the Diamondback Terrapin, a state protected threatened species. In Phase I the fly ash landfill would be closed, followed by construction of a 170,000 s.f. home improvement store, a 217,000 s.f. Wal-Mart supercenter, and 1,600 parking spaces. In phase II, 95,700 sf of retail space would be added in five separate retail buildings, plus another 380 parking spaces.
More than 482,000 s.f. of stores would be built in total. This massive project would generate more than 25,100 car trips on a Saturday. Local residents have been fighting the project since the day the project was first announced. Residents went on the defensive, and got the town recently to pass a new zoning by-law “intended to preserve the small town character of the town of Freetown by limiting the size of retail establishments, wholesale establishments, and shopping centers.” Under the “cap” bylaw, “no single retail business, whether located in a single structure, a combination of structures, single tenant space, or aggregate of structures or tenant spaces in an aggregate of structures, shall exceed 25,000 s.f of floor area.” Any adjacent retail “which shares a common check stand, management, controlling ownership, or storage areas shall be considered a ‘single retail business’ and their aggregate square footage or floor area” is calculated into the size cap. The same 25,000 s.f. cap is applied to whole businesses, and to shopping centers. The bylaw also says all shopping centers and retail stores must be located on land that has at least 70,000 s.f. in area, and 20% of that land area must remain open space. The bylaw does allow a store or shopping center to exceed 25,000 s.f. in an industrial zone---but only with a Special Permit from the planning board. The town also added a Site Plan Review bylaw that is designed to “protect neighboring properties against harmful effects of uses on the development site.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
Swansea, MA. Wal-Mart Denies Its Expansion Plans
Swansea, Massachusetts is a small community of roughly 16,000 people in southeastern Massachusetts, bordered by Barrington and Warren, Rhode Island, on the west and southwest, about 47 miles south of Boston, and 12 miles southeast of Providence, Rhode Island. The community already has a 100,000 s.f. Wal-Mart discount store at the Swansea Mall, which calls itself “a complete entertainment experience.” But now, as part of its drive to replace all discount stores, Wal-Mart has applied to build a bigger superstore in Swansea. The new store would expand to 161,000 s.f. according to a site plan submitted to the town by the mall’s owner, the Carlyle Development Group, based in White Plains, New York. Carlyle has been around since 1982, and calls itself an “expert in identifying undervalued real estate.” Carlyle bought the Swansea Mall six years ago from an insurance company, and the New York State Pension Fund. At that time, half of the four anchor spots at the Mall were vacant. Macy’s and Sears are two existing anchors in the Swansea Mall. Swansea’s Zoning Board was scheduled to meet this week to take up the expansion request---but apparently Wal-Mart doesn’t know about it. A company spokesman told the Providence Journal, “Wal-Mart has no publicly announced plans for Swansea at this time.” A formal site plan proposal submitted to a town is a “publicly announced plan,” yet the company was clearly not ready to lift the veil from its proposal. What Wal-Mart is doing in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, is systematically expanding or replacing its inventory of discount stores-—most of which were built in the 1990s.
Wal-Mart says it wants to build supercenters in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, in Woonsocket and Warwick, Rhode Island. These three supercenter proposals are relocations from existing stores---so three “dark stores” will be created by this power shift into larger boxes. Wal-Mart already has two supercenters in Rhode Island, which calls itself the “Ocean State,” but the ocean increasingly seems to refer to the ocean of asphalt created by big box developers. A Wal-Mart opened in the city of Providence, Rhode Island this year.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
NEW YORK SITE FIGHT: DECISION EXPECTED NEXT WEEK
Northgate Wal-Mart decision coming [Rochester Democrat and Chronicle]
Greece residents could learn as soon as Wednesday whether retail giant Wal-Mart will receive permission to build in Northgate Plaza on Dewey Avenue.
Gary Tajkowski, the town’s director of development services, said the Planning Board and Board of Zoning Appeals have scheduled a joint meeting for Wednesday at Town Hall to give their decisions in the matter.
The Wal-Mart project entails tearing down part of the existing Northgate Plaza to make way for a 146,000-square-foot superstore and a 4,000-square-foot McDonald’s. Town officials have been considering the plan and questioning developers since early this year, and have held numerous public hearings where residents and neighbors aired their concerns.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, September 07 | 1 comments | Permalink
NEW YORK SITE FIGHT: PRO-WAL-MART GROUP
A Group That Supports Wal-Mart in the Town of Evans [WIVB News (Buffalo, NY)]
We’re used to seeing a lot of opposition to Wal-Mart, but Thurday night a group that supports the retail giant wants to be heard.
Instead of fighting to keep Wal-Mart out of town, a group in Evans is supporting the retail giant.
The super center would go in at the Grandview Drive-in, which is causing a controversy in this small town. It’s a community divided as Evans residents fight over whether or not to welcome a Wal-Mart into their town.
Tony Troidl, Friends of the Grandview says, “Do they really want to put a store in or do they want a four or five year court battle over this property.”
An Angola resident in favor of wal-mart says, “I feel we need a department store around here, we have nothing.”
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, September 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
New Report Calls Wal-Mart Environmental Initiatives “Smoke and Mirrors”
A new report jointing published by 23 organizations across the country calls on Wal-Mart to reframe its sustainability efforts so that workers, the environment and communities are all respected. The report examines several specific areas where Wal-Mart falls short of its claim of environmental-friendliness. Areas of focus include Wal-Mart’s organics, seafood, wood sourcing, product packaging, dangerous toys, contributions to global warming, energy use, and waste quantities. The report goes on to incorporate workers’ rights and community impact analyses, retaining a wholistic view of Wal-Mart’s business model overall. From the introduction:
Nearly two years ago, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott announced a bold initiative to turn the world’s largest company green. A long-anticipated fi rst progress report on these sustainability goals is expected to be released soon. In advance of the company’s report, 23 environmental, farm, labor, and other civil society groups have offered their own critiques of Wal-Mart’s approach to
sustainability.Some of these critiques focus on specific Wal-Mart commitments and offer recommendations for change. Others argue that even if Wal-Mart achieved all of its stated goals, the company’s
business model makes it inherently unsustainable. All of them remind us of what’s at stake by demonstrating Wal-Mart’s huge and often devastating impacts on real people and places in the
United States and around the world.
Click here to download the full report from the Big Box Collaborative.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 06 | 2 comments | Permalink
RHODE ISLAND SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART TO EXPAND IN SWANSEA
Wal-Mart considering supercenter makeover at Swansea Mall [The Providence (R.I.) Journal]
Discount giant Wal-Mart wants to replace its store at Swansea Mall with a supercenter, a mall executive said yesterday, the latest move by the Arkansas company to expand in Southeastern New England.
Wal-Mart is seeking to replace its 100,000-square-foot store at the mall with a larger building that would allow it to sell groceries, in addition to its standard lineup of apparel, home goods and other items, according to Jason Huer, the mall’s general manager. The new building would be 161,000 square feet.
Swansea’s Zoning Board was scheduled to meet last night to take up an expansion request by mall owner Carlyle Development Group, according to a clerk in the Swansea town offices.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 06 | 0 comments | Permalink
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