Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Wake Up Walmart
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/
The above link is for the website "Wake up Walmart: America's Campaign to Change Walmart." One of the sections outlines the community impact Walmart can have, giving cited examples from studies, other websites, and reports where communities have suffered negative consequences.
"In Maine, existing businesses lost over 10 percent of their market in 80 percent of the towns where Wal-Mart opened stores. [Georgeanne Artz And James McConnon, The Impact of Wal-Mart on Host Towns and Surrounding Communities in Maine, 2001]."
They also have a blog that their team put together, and the July 14th post has the above picture, which is actually a video that shows the growth of Walmart from 1962-2007 . . . it is scary. One of the tabs is specifically for community fights, showing eaching town in each state that has a website or group that is currently fighting to keep Walmart out. None for Alabama or Georgia, but "save or gateway" is a group fighting to save green space in Virginia.
It is a great site with resources to fight, worker stories, and the opportunity to Join their Campaign and fight!! Check it out
Meghan Ann
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wal-Mart and Rural Communities
Monday, July 7, 2008
Zoning as a political tool
http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20040622_zoning.htm
Wal-mart: In the end they win
http://www.kvue.com/news/local/stories/062408kvueNorthcrossWalMart-cb.34f48fd2.html?npc
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The High Costs of Low Price: Bad Guy or Good Guy
The article is great and puts the Wal-Mart corporation in persepective. "Bad Guy or Good Guy"? You be the judge....the link is http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4167/
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wal-Mart Lawsuit against Zionsville
www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=8559725
Apparently, Wal-Mart is suing a small city, Zionsville because the planning commission rejected a twice proposed store. Much like the concerned citizens of Ashland, Va and the pink flamingos, major concerns of traffic increase and crime issues were presented. In addition to those concerns the citizens really feel that a Wal-Mart is not needed since there is one in close proximity-just three miles.
The news story also indicated that there is an ordinance to keep "big box"/superstores from developing in the city, which Wal-Mart is challenging as well.
Seems that Wal-Mart is not only known for its roll back prices but tearing communities to pieces.
Kenyatta
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Walmart Stats
Interesting
Miller
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Blog - Does Wal-Mart Ruin Small Towns
Friday, June 27, 2008
Big box fights in the Wasatch front area of Utah
~Wes
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Fighting Wal-Mart thru development controls
Although the article was not academic, it helped lead me to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), an organization that focuses on the issues caused not just by Wal-Mart, but all big-box retailers. The article was written by Stacey Mitchell, who also wrote Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Business & The Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why it Matters. She is the senior researcher at ILSR.
The solution that Mitchell provided in this article was that a community should be proactive about expanding its control over development. The two ways she suggested was requiring an economic impact analysis and restricting the size and location for new retail projects. She did say this could be difficult since city officials often think their economy will receive a boost from the big-boxes (like we saw in the documentary) and because Wal-Mart publishes its own research that down-play the negatives (also, like we saw in the documentary).
ILSR (http://www.ilsr.org/index.html) created the Big Box Toolkit (http://www.bigboxtoolkit.com/index.php), which provides guidelines to help communities go up against big-box chains.
Mitchell lives in Maine, where the Informed Growth Act was passed in June 2007. The act requires that cities do economic impact studies when new retail stores are more than 75,000 square feet. Most Home Depots are 150,000 square feet.
I think the Big Box Toolkit could be a great resource, especially to small communities. If the citizens of Ashland had access to this toolkit, they may have felt that they were better trained to compete against Wal-Mart.
Ashland Perspectives Continued
As the current President of the Pink Flamingos (PF) , (Why does this sound like a knock off from GREASE and the Pink Ladies?) they have fought many battles on behalf of the town. They are currently fighting a battle with AmTrak. You remember the film told us that the quaint little town had a train stop in the middle of downtown? Well come to find out Amtrak is trying to remove this stop along with 2 others in neighboring counties. The PFs have joined forces in this battle with their neighboring county!
Change must really get their feathers ruffled!
-Jason
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
We all were wanting the know, "what the heck was up with the Pink Flamingos?" Here's what Sprawl-Busters has to say about that:
1999-07-20
Ashland, VA. Flamingos Attack Wal-Mart.
The flamingo is a bird that can stand for long periods of time on one leg. Area residents are hopeful that the retail community in Ashland does not have to learn how to survive on one leg. Existing malls like Ashland Junction will absorb the greatest impact if Wal-Mart comes to town, and the Mechumps creek that runs through the property will certainly be degraded, eventually dumping its waters into the Chesapeake Bay.Residents are also concerned about worsening air quality in the area. The developer's attorney has told residents that his company will soon make public an economic impact study about the full impact of their 410,000 s.f. Wal-Mart mall. Before the study is even published, local residents say they know what it will conclude: Wal-Mart will have no adverse impact on any public services or public revenues. But the flamingos in town know better. For more details about the Ashland battle, contact sprawl-busters at info@sprawl-busters.com
For more info: http://www.sprawl-busters.com/search.php?readstory=245
Ashland Coffee and Tea
So.....what did i find out? Well i just wanted to really get her input as to the state of things since Satan built his store in her town. She said her business has not been affected really by Wal-Mart. ( I wouldnt really consider Wal-Mart a huge competitor with her niche' to begin with.) She did take the opportunity to let me know that Starbucks had built between her and the interstate in the last year and that has had an affect on her business.
When i asked her about the affects of building the Wal-Mart on their community, she cited that the location kept it away from the downtown area so it hasnt really hit alot of businesses hard. She ventured to guess that the 2 local groceries (Food Lion and U-Cress) probably felt it the most, giving up parts of their market share to Wal-Mart. Second she felt the hardware store probably felt the blow more than others.
I went on to ask her about the participation in the process of fighting the building of Wal-Mart in their town. She offered that the people felt ignored and were very disheartened with the decision (as we all could have guessed). She didnt feel that the Lame Duck City Council voted for the Wal-Mart as a direct result of them not being re-elected. Their minds were made up even before the election.
She offered that the recent influx of new residents (that has driven her to move outside the city limits at this point) has probably helped lessen the blow of the new SuperCenter being located there and that most of the local stores who have survived have their niche's they serve that has been paramount in their survival.
I have a call in to a professor at Randolf-Macon College in Ashland. She referred me to him for some more substantial evidence of the effects of Wal-mart. Apparently he has conducted economic impact studies since Wal-Marts arrival.
-Jason
Talking with Residents
The 96-year-old store has been able to retain its comfortable, family-style approach to business throughout the years despite increasing competition from larger grocery chains.... Until recently, the store's customer base has been steady. "It may be smaller now because of some big-box stores and some larger markets," David said. "But we still carry some specialty items that other stores don't carry such as specialty cut steaks, fresh ground beef cut in-house and our own house sausage."
The article mostely dealt with the store's history and personal reflections on community involvement, but it does provide some insight that these local business owners were able to survive despite the doomsday prognostications from the "flamingo troupe".
The forum reply also gave a link to Ashland Coffee & Tea. Not much info there other than coffee descriptions, but apparently the head flamingo was able to survive as well.
We could probably use the forum to gather more information, so head on over and post if you have questions. You can visit my post here. I'm considering posting our blog address over there to invite cross-discussion, but figured I should wait for approval... Dr. HM, what do you think?
~Wes