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Building a Walmart is looting a neighborhood.
Where I grew up they bulldozed a (very rare) coastal dune lake to put up a Walmart- with a giant asphalt parking lot. Then a few years later they bulldozed the next coastal dune lake over to make a Super Walmart- leaving the previous one vacant.
We won't get those lakes back.
We won't get those lakes back.
No lie.
The blue circle is the old Walmart. The red circle is the new Walmart. None of the rest of the development was there. What was there is irreplaceable and was better than any Walmart. So no, I am not worried about a Walmart.
The blue circle is the old Walmart. The red circle is the new Walmart. None of the rest of the development was there. What was there is irreplaceable and was better than any Walmart. So no, I am not worried about a Walmart.
This is my specific (rural) example. A 2012 study in Chicago found that "within a four-mile radius of a new Chicago WalMart...the probability of going out of business was significantly higher..." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891242412457985
"we estimate that WalMartâs opening resulted in the loss of approximately 300 full-time equivalent jobs in nearby neighborhoods."
WalMart is looting. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891242412457985
WalMart is looting. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891242412457985
From a disaster perspective- WalMart chooses to build in areas prone to flooding because the land is cheaper. They have the ability to dry the store and replace the total stock within days if flooded. We don't think anything of this. Why think anything now?
This 2011 study shows that " An additional Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases average BMI by 0.24 units and the obesity rate by 2.3% points."
WalMart also loots your health- and then sells you medicine. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119010000690
WalMart also loots your health- and then sells you medicine. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119010000690
A 2006 review of the literature on 'The WalMart Effect" shows that "While a store may hire 325 employees upon its initial store opening, 262 of those jobs are actually taken away from other retail businesses in the area" while the employees themselves rely on public assistance.
In addition to the closing of local businesses, the killing of downtown and the suction of every aspect of life into globalized capitalism, WalMart takes public money to subsidize it's non-living wages.
https://cache.kzoo.edu/handle/10920/26396
https://cache.kzoo.edu/handle/10920/26396
Which brings me back to the point I have made before: If you don't concern yourself with what goes into to building WalMarts (and the built environment in general) why concern yourself with it now?
(I know why....)
(I know why....)
All of the things conservatives profess to love: Small towns, family farms, local traditions, skilled work- have been ripped to shreds in the churn of neoliberal capitalism and all they do is stand back and watch. But...
When the people who are forced live their lives in the maw of globalized urbanization that doesn't care if they live or die, throw one ratchet into the machine--then, then, that is a bridge too far. Spare us. Literally.
