Utah Site Fight: Residents Remain Unsatisfied
Wal-Mart: Resentment lingers despite key changes [Davis County Clipper (Utah)]
Though compromise is often seen as the best solution to an unwinnable argument, it tends to leave behind a combination of resignation and resentment no matter where the lines of agreement are drawn.
Centerville city officials made sure that Wal-Mart, which will officially opens its doors Sept. 19, agreed to a long list of requirements ranging from traffic funds to noise restrictions before finally granting approval to the store’s development agreement in 2005.
With the big-box almost a reality, however, many residents still seem to feel that even the additional requirements weren’t quite enough.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
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
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
UTAH SITE FIGHT: THE GAME IS FIXED
No secrecy in Centerville’s road to Wal-Mart [Davis County (Utah) Clipper]
If only we’d known then what we know now. Though Wal-Mart is set to open its doors Sept. 19, more than a few residents are still pointing fingers at certain times, rule changes and officials, claiming that had they been better informed at that point they would have been able to keep the biggest of all big-boxes out of their city.
“We voted them down once or twice, and they still came in,” said Janet Wenzel, co-owner of the Edelweiss Gift Shop in Centerville. “We put signs out on our front lawn saying we didn’t want Wal-Mart, and they still came in.”
In reality, though, the process by which Wal-Mart came to roost in Centerville isn’t as dramatic or shadowy as most people think.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Easy Steps for Overcoming Local Opposition
We couldn’t resist this sly commentary on big box development’s approach to fighting local opposition to their stores. This op-ed columnist from the LA Times makes crushing citizens’ groups sound so easy!
How to build whatever you want [Los Angeles Times]
Progress without strategy is regress. Time and again a new Wal-Mart or airport runway that would enable investors to make as much money as they want or consumers to travel twice as often from here to there is stalled by the Taliban mentalities of local resistance. Fortunately for America and its future, a formula exists whose careful application seldom fails. It deserves to be better known. Here it is.
Delay announcing your development for as long as possible. Never underestimate the element of surprise. This is not merely a matter of catching your opponents off-guard. Most people have an entrenched fatalism, as evidenced by the number of lottery tickets they buy. To give the appearance of a fait accompli is to take on the authority of fate. It was bound to happen. Whatcha gonna do?
Never lose an opportunity to outlast your opponents by outspending them. If there’s a formal approval process, do everything in your power to prolong it. Amend your proposal. Reschedule your testimony. The new paradigm of “let them eat cake” is “let them hold a bake sale”—again and again.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 05 | 1 comments | Permalink
UTAH SITE FIGHT: CONCERNS FOR SMALL TOWN
Wal-Mart interrupted [The Salt Lake Tribune]
City is still deciding whether to approve retailer’s request to rezone KmartPlans for a Wal-Mart in the heart of Sugar House, known for its distinctive local stores and small-town charm, appear to be on hold.
City officials are still deciding whether to approve Wal-Mart Stores’ April request to rezone its property. The world’s largest retailer wants to tear down the aging Kmart building it bought in 2004 and replace it with a 113,620-square-foot Wal-Mart, as well as an attached 8,700-square-foot covered garden center.
But there’s a hurdle. Under current zoning rules, Wal-Mart is allowed to remodel the existing building. It can’t raze the building and construct a similar commercial structure.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
Salt Lake City, UT. Official Says Many Residents Hate Wal-Mart
Sugar House is one of Salt Lake City, Utah’s oldest neighborhoods. The local media describes the area as being known for its “distinctive local stores and small-town charm.” But Sugar House is facing a big threat to that distinctive charm. Wal-Mart wants to build a new 122,320 s.f. supercenter in the heart of Sugar House. But the company faces a big obstacle: the empty Kmart building that Wal-Mart bought three years ago.
For Wal-Mart to build a new store, it must first tear down the empty Kmart, but the city’s zoning ordinance says the existing building can be remodeled—but not torn down. Wal-Mart has therefore asked for a rezoning of the property---but such a request is not an automatic right, and the city could easily turn down the request. Wal-Mart tried to sweeten the deal by offering a landscaping package and “green” features on the building, such as skylights. They offered to install new sidewalks and flatten the parking lot, which is currently sloped. “We plan to invest a significant amount of money and resources into the redevelopment of this site, eventually providing the community with a store that is appealing to the eye, technologically modern and environmentally progressive,” a Wal-Mart spokesman said. But the Salt Lake City Council has not yet decided on whether or not to allow the rezoning. They are likely to pay attention to the recommendation of an advisory group to the council known as the Sugar House Community Council.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
TEXAS SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART OPPONENTS HEADED TO COURT
Northcross Wal-Mart headed to Trial [News 8, Austin, Texas]
The controversy over a planned Wal-Mart Supercenter at Austin’s Northcross Mall continues. The mall’s owner, the city of Austin and two neighborhood groups will be fighting it out in court in November.
Responsible Growth For Northcross and the Allendale Neighborhood Association have combined their lawsuits against the city of Austin and Lincoln Property Company, the owners of Northcross Mall.
Part of the mall at Anderson Lane and Burnet Road is already being demolished. The 198,000-square-foot site planned for the retail giant, however, is on hold.
“They’ve agreed not to do any external demolition of the part of the mall that’s suppose to become the Supercenter until after we go to trial,” Hope Morrison of Responsible Growth for Northcross said.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, August 28 | 0 comments | Permalink
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