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Press Releases
Vox Clamantis
By Elliott Carr
Thinking outside of the Big Box
Large national chain stores are coming to
Cape Cod, where we can't decide whether they are good, bad,
or both. Wal-Mart of Benton, Arkansas, which employs 820,000
people,more than any other company in America ,opened its first
Cape Cod store in 2001, replacing Bradlees in the Falmouth Mall.
They promptly shut off the entry to the rest of the mall. Wal-Mart
doesn't want customers coming and going to other stores; they
want all of the consumer's wallet.
A company doesn't get that big without knowing how to crowd
smaller pigs away from the trough. Frustrated in Yarmouth, Atlanta's
Home Depot circles, attempting to put its 1460th store into
another vacant Bradlees site in Hyannis, temporarily hung up
in a disagreement with the Cape Cod Commission about whether
an expanded list of hazardous materials constitutes a change
of use. According to the newly organized Smart Planning and
Growth Coalition, a Home Depot store in Hyannis could have a
negative impact on as many as 148 smaller, locally owned retailers
on the Cape, sales at new chain stores don't materialize out
of nowhere.
Stop & Shop of Quincy recently announced plans for one of
its "next generation" of superstores, expanding from
55,000 to 70,000 square feet into a third vacant Bradlees site
in Orleans. They need the additional space not to sell more
food, but as outlets for Office Depot, Toys R Us, and other
inedible goods.
The aforementioned Smart Planning and Growth Coalition labels
the chain stores' arrival as "corporate colonialism: large
organizations from one place going into distant places and strip-mining
them culturally and economically;" evil empires invading
the Cape.
The coalition spins a lot of facts to bolster its opposition
to "corporate colonialism":
Studies by the Local Government Coalition indicate that "foreign
owned businesses contribute from one to 16 percent of revenues
to their local community," whereas "locally owned
businesses contribute up to 60
percent of revenues to the local community."
A study by the Town of Barnstable indicated that a "big
box" retail store costs the taxpayers $468 a year per 1,000
square feet of space, whereas a "specialty retail"
store returns $326 for the same amount of
space.
Sustainability data indicates that a $16,845 gap exists between
actual wages for retail employees and the "living wage"
necessary for a household on Cape Cod.
Big chain stores enlarge this gap by moving a larger portion
of their jobs into lower paying categories. Nationally, although
Wal-Mart has appeared on lists of top employers, it has also
been accused of lowering wages, eliminating more jobs in competitors
than they create, exporting jobs to sweatshops overseas, and
not providing adequate fringe benefits.
Although it is known for lower prices, it has been charged with
selling misleading imitations of name goods, economically strangling
suppliers, and many other evils in its quest to provide lower
prices,or the perception thereof.
About the only thing Wal-Mart's owners have never been accused
of is sacrificing their own interest for the good of consumers
or the community. Helen, Robson, John, Jim, and Alice Walton,
descendants of Wal-Mart's founder, rank fourth through eighth
on Forbes Magazine's latest ranking of richest Americans.
I went into a Wal-Mart store once in Waycross, Georgia, when
I was visiting to see the Okefenokee Swamp. After departing
my motel for an afternoon stroll, I encountered the Wal-Mart.
Recognizing a tourist attraction for a naive Yankee, I walked
its aisles for an hour, viewing nothing that has ever induced
me to return to one of its siblings.
My heart and my brain occupy different bodies when it comes
to superstores, caught between yesterday and tomorrow. My heart
says no, but my brain wonders if the opposition is too little,
too late, and too
parochial.
The coalition's charges merit close scrutiny. The inevitable
dichotomy between providing better service and making more money
seems to tip inevitably toward the latter as corporate size
increases.
But isn't competition the American way? What's the difference
between the Bradlees stores that are being replaced and the
new occupants? And isn't it strange that some of the Cape¹s
greatest benefactors from a development economy now want to
be saved by the Cape Cod Commission and planning?
Asked what the coalition seeks, Executive Director Felicia Penn
responds, "There needs to be rezoning, closing communities
over-zoned for retail." But box stores seem to be restricted
to former Bradlees
locations now.
Despite a graduate degree in business administration and 38
years in business, I don't know whether cumulatively giant stores
are good or badfor the Cape Cod economy and I haven't read or
heard anything that leads me to conclude that anyone else does.
I do find myself tending to
believe the critics and trusting very little of what any large
corporation says.
Understanding the economic impact of developments is as necessary
and desirable as understanding the environmental impact.
"Copyright 2002, The Cape Cod Voice, all
rights reserved. Reproduced by permission."
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