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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=531180223-09012006>From the "How the
World Works" blog on Salon.com:</SPAN></FONT><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2><SPAN class=531180223-09012006><FONT face=Verdana color=#000000
size=1> </FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<P><FONT
color=#000000>http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2006/01/05/starke/print.html<BR><BR>
<HR color=#cccccc SIZE=1>
</FONT>
<P></P><FONT face="georgia, times new roman, times, serif" color=#000000>
<H2>Who is guilty of killing downtown?</H2></FONT><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2><FONT color=#000000><B>Wal-Mart may
well be the Grim Reaper, but aren't shoppers the ones swinging the scythe?</B>
</FONT></FONT>
<P><B><FONT color=#000000>Andrew Leonard</FONT></B></P><FONT
face="times new roman, times, serif" size=3>
<P><FONT color=#000000>Jan. 05, 2006 | Driving down Highway 301 in northern
Florida two weeks ago, I saw something that hadn't been there the last time I
passed that way -- a brand, spanking new Wal-Mart Supercenter smack in the
middle of the town of Starke. It was hard to miss. Starke is looking pretty
rundown these days, with a fair number of shuttered storefronts lining the main
drag through town. But the Supercenter was all shiny and sparkly -- and
extraordinarily popular. I learned later from local press reports that since the
store opened up in late October, it has single-handedly transformed the traffic
patterns of the entire region. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>It's not hard to understand why. Supercenters are a
middling-size town's downtown all by themselves. In Starke, </FONT><A
href="http://www.walmartfacts.com/newsdesk/article.aspx?id=1451"
target=new><FONT color=#000000>the new 157,628-square-foot store</FONT></A><FONT
color=#000000> (three times as big as a 15-year-old store that it replaced) "now
features a full line of groceries as well as a bakery, a delicatessen, a frozen
food section and meat, dairy and fresh produce sections. The store has 36
general merchandise departments including apparel and accessories, fine jewelry,
a lawn and garden center, health and beauty aids, and a full line of
electronics. It will be open to customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and
will include 21 full-service and nine express check-out lanes." </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>Comparing it with the bedraggled appearance of the rest
of the town, it was natural to wonder if Wal-Mart is disemboweling the local
economy, as so many of its critics claim it is. I was reminded of this today
when I perused a </FONT><A
href="http://ourfuture.org/press/releases/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=141"
target=new><FONT color=#000000>new report</FONT></A><FONT color=#000000> on
Wal-Mart released by a left-wing advocacy group called </FONT><A
href="http://ourfuture.org/" target=new><FONT color=#000000>Campaign for
America's Future.</FONT></A><FONT color=#000000> </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>The report declares that "Wal-Mart sucked $20 billion out
of local economies this holiday season ... Crowds fighting to take advantage of
the company’s aggressive discounts gave the retail behemoth more than five times
the sales of its closest competitor" -- a total of some $66 billion in sales in
November and December. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>"The new campaign slogan 'Wal-Mart: Killing Local
Businesses One Main Street at a Time' isn’t just rhetoric, it is reality. Across
the country, from Beaverton, Ore., to Batesburg-Leesville, S.C., and even New
York City, the announcement of a coming Wal-Mart sends shivers down the
collective spine of local business owners." </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>This may well be true. And I have no particular quibble
with the statistics -- they seem to jibe pretty closely with those presented in
the soon-to-be-published "The Wal-Mart Effect" by Fast Company editor Charles
Fishman. But judging by the long lines of cars looking for parking spaces at the
Starke Supercenter, the arrival of a Wal-Mart also sends thrills of joy through
local consumers. And there really needs to be better acknowledgment of this by
Wal-Mart critics, particularly from the progressive, worker-friendly sorts who
are behind the Campaign for America's Future. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>Don't the throngs of North Florida residents flocking to
Wal-Mart bear at least as much responsibility for killing their downtowns as
Wal-Mart does? And shouldn't the cash that they are saving be part of the
discussion as to how much money is being "sucked" out of the local economy? If,
as Fishman points out, Wal-Mart's prices are 10 to 15 percent lower than those
of other stores, then consumers may well have saved as much as $7 billion or $8
billion in November and December by shopping there. That's a fair piece of
change. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#000000>The obvious question is, do the costs outweigh the
benefits? And there are plenty of good reasons to argue that they do; that the
total cumulative impact of Wal-Mart on the fabric of society is negative. But
the unfortunate reality is that few minds are going to be changed by one-sided
reports that do not even begin to acknowledge the very real reasons that people
have for shopping at Wal-Mart -- or the responsibility that those shoppers bear
for what kind of changes are wrought in their local
communities.</FONT></P></FONT>
<P><FONT color=#000000></FONT></P><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
size=2></FONT>
<P align=right><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#000000
size=2><B>-- Andrew Leonard</B></FONT></P>
<P align=right></SPAN></FONT> </P></DIV>
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