Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Go Wal-Mart Go

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004, Nathan Odle wrote:

> Seen on Slashdot:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/national/05WALM.html? 
> ex=1081742400&en=0fba9b44401afe0a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
> 
> I know there's probably a lot of people on this list that hate the
> Great Wall of Mart, but I for one am a fan.  I really like their
> solution to the problem in this case because 1) it's going to a
> popular vote, and 2) if it passes they won't be dealing with any
> city officials with their own little fiefdoms.

Some places in California have been doing some extremly dorky things 
in attempts to keep Wal*mart out out of their area, up to and 
including passing laws that say, in spirit if not in letter, "no 
Wal*Mart Supercenters here".  (They do this by banning retailers who 
take up more than X square feet of which Y% is devoted to grocery 
items for reasons I could get into if anybody wanted to know.)  That 
said, Wal*Mart is not an unmixed blessing for some places in 
the state.

So one thing that has kept California from dissolving into anarchy 
is the fact that some classes of jobs, and notably supermarket jobs, 
are heavily unionized, and those contracts include at least some 
provision for medical insurance.  For better or for worse, this 
raises the bar for some other kinds of employers (especially those 
who do NOT employ predominantly undocumented workers).  The recent 
grocery union strike in SoCal was all about these issues.

Another point about Wal*Mart in California is that they really do
have the potential to alter land use in a pretty drastic way.  The
20-60 acre lots favored by the retailer just don't exist in many
urbanized places for such a relatively low inensity use as Wal*Mart.  
So this battle is about an anomolously large empty lot in Inglewood, 
but in most cases, Wal*Mart is really going to end up on virgin land 
at the outskirts of the outskirts.  There may be nothing illegal 
about this, but you don't have to be some kind of Eco-nut to 
wonder whether the infinite expansion of the Inland Empire is 
sustainable or wise.
 
> The article is a little inaccurate with their "city-within-a-city"  
> metaphor, but being able to buy a piece of property and do what
> you want with it is something that I can support as long as
> there's not a nuclear waste site going up on it or something...

What you're talking about there is, of course, just one example of
an externality.  So if a developer builds something that radically
alters traffic patterns, who pays for the road adjustments?  If a 
Wal*Mart is built in town A even if town B was happy to have them, 
what do you do when B loses a good chunk of sales tax revenue?  And 
the scenarios go on and on.  Externalities and artificial boundaries 
are a big and growing issue in development because people really now 
do understand some of the costs.  So in SoCal about 30 miles 
ESE of Inglewood there is a place called the City of Industry.  I 
think you can guess what's there.  And you can guess what's NOT 
there in many of the surrounding towns.  And I could go on about 
what this has done to trash the place generally.

And, yeah, all of this stuff does go way beyond Wal*Mart.

jking


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