(Edited to add: I have written a public apology for the post below.)
I exited the 4/5/6 today. The usual groups of people were standing outside Grand Central handing out menus, free rags, and the latest giveaways, whatever they cold pile on a passerby. They’re like attack fish, these people. I usually ignore them.
Today, however, one person, and more specifically a word he used, caught my attention. He was young, I would guess around 25. He looked clean cut, kind of frat boyish. He was a cross between the young Republican kid from next door and the really drunk guy at the local TGIF. The words “Wal-Mart.” spilled from his lips.
And so I took the freebee. At first glance, it looked pro-Wal-Mart. Usually, with any anti-Wal-Mart piece of paraphernalia the message is made very clear immediately. Their message is usually: “Wal-Mart Sucks and Here’s Why”, but this one was different. It looked different.
I walked further down the street and ran into another guy handing them out. I passed him by. The third guy is where this story becomes a little more interesting.
“KEEP WAL-MART OUT OF NEW YORK CITY! KEEP WAL-MART AWAY FROM NEW YORK!”
Oh! I thought to myself. These men handing out poorly designed flyers featuring a union bug ARE anti-Wal-Mart. So I stopped to chat.
“Where are they said to be looking?” I asked the guy holding the stack of papers, the same one who had just screamed “KEEP WAL-MART OUT OF NEW YORK CITY!”
“They are talking about coming to Queens. But they have promised to not stop there. Once they are in Queens, they hope to come to Manhattan and then maybe Brooklyn.”
“I see. That sucks. Thanks for the flyer. I got one from your friend down the block.”
I continued on my way.
After I got a closer look at what they had been handing out, I realized that they weren’t, in fact, protesting Wal-Mart at all. The flyers they were handing out were, in fact, Pro-Wal-Mart. Sure, they reeled some people in by yelling out anti-Wal-Mart sentiments but they’re designed and printed by the Wal-Mart Corporation Wal-Mart Watch.
I’m not sure if I should be annoyed by this venture, or totally impressed by the last guys ability to reel in an otherwise deaf audience. (For the record, I would have taken the piece from someone who outwardly spewed pro-sentiments. I originally thought I had. It’s best to know what your enemies are up to. heh)
(The below blurbs are lifted word-for-word from the flyer I received.)
“Ensure Quality and Affordable Health Care Coverage You can’t create a team spirit when the situation is so one-sided when management gets so much and the workers get so little of the pie.“
“Our Nation’s Largest Employer and most financially successful company. Wal-Mart is a singular American institution. It occupies a unique position in our world by virtue of its size, read and responsibility for the livelihoods of millions of workers and the needs of billions of consumers. And with such overwhelming influence comes certain moral responsibilities. It is the acceptance or rejection of those responsibilities that determines greatness.”
“By paying a family-sustaining wage, Wal-Mart will ensure that federal, state, and local taxpayers are not forced to spend billions of dollars on public assistance for Wal-Mart employees. Wal-Mart itself will not seek taxpayer-funded subsidies that locally-owned businesses do not receive. And Wal-Mart will not pit local communities against each other when selecting sites for Wal-Mart stores or other facilities.”
Not too much about keeping Wal-Mart out of New York City after all, eh?
I’d be tempted to go back and ask those guys why they want to keep Wal-Mart out of New York…
Katie, I might do that, actually. Perhaps I’ll get coffee and talk to them. Yeah, ok, you convinced me. Be back in a bit.
They weren’t there anymore. But I did get a decaf. Bummer. My nerve was up.
oooh. Very Orwellian. scar-ee.
i lived in ashland VA about 4 years ago when the town (the self-proclaimed center of the universe) was fighting the onslaught of Wal-mart. (on a side note, Chestertown MD successfully fought wal-mart, mainly because the infrastructure would not have been able to sustain the traffic Wal-mart would have brought in). However, Ashland eventually lost, since it is right on I-95 and there is no problem with curbing traffic through the mini-town along the rr tracks, but damned if Wal-mart wasn’t hopping 24 hours a day. I guess all that fighting wore down their resistance completely.
The question remains: Why? If they’re doing so well, why do they need to spread to places like NYC and Brooklyn? I don’t understand. We do fine without them. They do fine without us. Jobs? Security? I don’t understand why. Greed?
Aimee, good for Chestertown. I hope NYC can do the same. But I fear we’ll eventually lose.
Anyone know if there are any on Staten Island yet? I had heard they might have approved one years ago. May remember wrong.
Greed?
Yes.
Their plan is simple – total domination and no competition. They go town to town and destroy local economies to become the sole retailer in the area.
Its almost like one of those late-night scifi movies, except instead of ships, they land giant bigbox stores fromt the sky.
Then they rape the animals and slaughter the women. Or is it the other way around?
why? the same reason starbucks has shows everywhere. remember “Waiting for Guffmann”? the talk about starbucks being acroos the street from eachother? i’ve got one of those situatuations here in pittsburgh! greed obviously
why? it’s the same reason the Apple just opened another store in midtown. greed obviously
why did the original McDonalds hamberger shop open in california so many years ago? greed obviously.
they provide a service and no company allows their returns to produce a negative or zero growth…..how do we get the opposite of this? we expand and into new markets(unlike starbucks!) people who hate the spread of walmarts don’t hate progress, they just seem to have a rabid hatred for walmart…the place that supposedly destroys communities but it is here that the poor shop because they can afford it. sure much of their wares are crap, but not everyone can afford 60 dollar ralph lauren pillowcases. why spend 4 bucks on a copper colored flower vase at walmart when you could spend 300 for a copper caudre’ hand formed vase from washinton state? real people shop at walmart, poor people shop at walmart, average people shop at walmart. just because a walmart goes into a town doesn’t mean the populous instantly goes stupid? the people who want expensive mom and pop stuff and boutique stuff will still be able to pay through the nose for it and will readily. they would never stoop to buy something from walmart anyhow right?
don’t be hatin’
I will defend Apple until I am blue in the face. Heh. Apple has the demand, don’t you think? There is no competitor that Apple will put out of business by opening another Apple store in Manhattan. They also ask ALL businesses that choose to sell their merchandise NOT up the prices. At least that’s been my understanding. Wal Mart has competition.
Do you really compare their greed to Apple?
Like I said, I am a defender of Apple. They just piss me off when they release a new computer the day AFTER I buy the older one. :]
Also, there is a HUGE gap between buying shite from Wal-Mart and purchasing 60 dollar ralph lauren bed sheets, dude. Huge.
I’ll hate until they start treating their employees better. I’ll hate until they start treating the environment better. I’ll hate until they stop putting small businesses out of business and destroying small town economies.
hehehehehe
hugs and kisses, i’m just swatting at the hornet’s nest : )
Greg, you know I love ya.
If you want more swatters, however, visit Gothamist They linked to it and some folks totally agree with you. :] You’re not alone, sir Greg.
“Do you really compare their greed to Apple?”
no, i don’t call it greed in the first place……i call it business. moving into a new market is the way business shows that they are doing something. it’s not greed, it’s economics. just like apple.
So, someone over on gothamist pointed out that the flyers were printed by Wal-Mart Watch. (linked to above. I stand corrected.) The weird thing is, they are written so very pro-Wal-Mart. The wording is very positive. Yet their site read:
“WalmartWatch.com is a campaign of Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics. This site is in no way connected with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. or any affiliate of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.”
I’m still confused.
Well thats a lie too
walmartwatch.com is registered to
United Food & Commercial Workers
ufcw.org
they seem to have a bunch of anti walmart stuff in there, but its still misleading
my friends parents were recently hired by walmart to try and sell them into foreign countries. my friends dad even wrote a pro walmart book. i wanted to punch him in the face at his son’s wedding last month
i don’t see wal-mart really mixing well with europe…
I am becoming more and more confused by this. Why was the guy handing out the flyers this morning so very anti-Wal-mart when, in fact, this particular flyer reads rather for them as long as they abide by the rules written on the flyer? At no point on this does it say that they currently ARE NOT abiding by said rules.
I’m confused.
I don’t get the impression Wal-Mart would do well in Europe either. Their cars are too small to make a trip there worthwile. ;]
yes, how could they fit an industrial sized quantity of yams and 18 kids in the back of a smart car??
i hear ya, we should do all we can to stop the sale of inexpensive goods around the globe and to keep people from paying less when they can pay more somewhere else. we need someone to police this nonsense of economic totalitarianism imposed around the world and most of all stop the american economic system from destroying the sanctity of lackadaisical work environments. how can there be ciesta from 11:00am to 2:00 pm when walmarts are open all afternoon. it just destroys the fabric of their culture and imposes the horrible american idea of business, punctuality and customer service to their care free lives…..they just won’t have a chance! we may not be able to stop them here, but maybe we can protect the idiots in europe, japan, africa, russia, middle east, austrailia and so on from the evils of walmart’s obvious desire for world domination and open border business. if we don’t stop them now, the universe couyld be in trouble next!
: )
The “Wal Mart lowers prices = good” argument is so amazingly uninformed and one dimensional, I’m often amazed that people who make it have the capacity in their brains to think that and breathe at the same time.
Yeah, walmart offers lower prices – but do you ever wonder how is it that they lower prices , or what the ramifications are?
WalMart has a history of going into communities, offering lower prices at or below cost, and thereby shutting down local businesses. Those businesses are the ones that hire people in the community, offer healthcare and living wages to workers, buy from local mfgs/distributers, and use local banks for savings and credit.
When you replace those businesses with walmart, you push the economy into a centralized structure in Arkansas. Profits don’t stay in the community, money isn’t reinvested, the community is just colonized/exploited for cash that goes straight to AK. You see the actual retailers fail first, and then you see all of the supporting industries. People then just don’t shop at walmart, but you see those who once owned businesses become walmart employees making minimum wage.
And what happens when those small businesses fail? A giant influx of government bailouts / bankruptcy protection / people needing social welfare.
Then look at what WalMart does to large scale supply—walmart dictates the market price. You can either supply to them at their price , which means you’re cutting profits and laying off workers, or walmart goes to a comeptitor who will take the loss to get the marketshare and push you out of business.
If you’re truly so short sighted to only see “ooh , low prices now, how could that now be good!” and not bother to look at the system of how those prices are achieved and the real world economic ramifications of them (and how they will affect you), you should really just sit back, pipe down, and rub one out to the new issue of the economist. i hear there’s a great spread of dick cheney shirtless this month.
Walmart’s effect on the economy is more than just a low price for consumers, and the ‘low price’ at the checkout line winds up costing people dearly later on.
Actually, readers of The Economist would be smart enough to recognize that WalMart doesn’t adhere to the free market principles in which many of its academic supporters claim to believe.
jonathan you kill me! that is some funny stuff! hehehe……i think you assume i’m serious. i was kidding about walmart taking over the world……but i’m starting to think that you believe it could happen! i know you want everyone to do things your way and not think for themselves and that’s understandable, your way is the right way. and i’d probably do things your way if i weren’t so busy punching my monkey while asphyxiating myself with pictures of tricky-dicky. you really need to start wearing a cape. ; )
Toby-
No, readers of the Economist SHOULD think that. Most don’t.
Greg-
No, I want people to think for themselves – but that includes being educated. But yes, I am infallible, brilliant, and God’s gift to mankind.
I do think that WalMart is apt to ‘take over the world’ though. The #1 export the US has going for it right now isn’t freedom, its the concept of campaign finance deform, aka egregious lobbying. WalMart and other multinational corporations have been going crazy over the past 15+ years on that path.
jonathan, we need to send walmart to china, we could systematically implode their entire economy by selling them their own junk!
jonathan, we need to send walmart to china, we could systematically implode their entire economy by selling them their own junk!
ha hahahhahahhahahha
hahhahahhah
I read The Economist :)
one thing that confuses me, take this statement….
When you replace those businesses with walmart, you push the economy into a centralized structure in Arkansas. Profits don’t stay in the community, money isn’t reinvested, the community is just colonized/exploited for cash that goes straight to AK.
i realize i’m dumb, but, what do you mean? where did the employees paycheck go? or state local sales tax? truckers? local construction, local utilities and road building? not to mention walmart is a public company with stockholder possibly all over the world. proffit comes After the expenses are paid….so should i stop buying from macy’s because my money goes to NYC…or i shouldn’t buy coffee from starbucks because my money goes to washington state then who knows where?….should i not rent farenheight 911 from blockbuster or i should only buy gasoline made by my neighbor cliff? where do i stop? how would a person survive when imposing such strong limitations to what one purchases? and why don’t i crack down on K-Mart Hills Aimes for selling the same crappy import items at low prices too. why is it just walmart in the cross-hairs? those companies are based in cities other than mine. what should i do? they pay minimum wage too, what should i do? will the madness ever end?
i’m going to start making gas out of peanut oil from the chinese food restaurants. when I perfect my method, you can all have some.
<blockquote>So, someone over on gothamist pointed out that the flyers were printed by Wal-Mart Watch. (linked to above. I stand corrected.) The weird thing is, they are written so very pro-Wal-Mart. The wording is very positive. Yet their site read:
“WalmartWatch.com is a campaign of Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics. This site is in no way connected with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. or any affiliate of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.”
I’m still confused.<blockquote>
it’s a list of things that they <i>want</i> wal-mart to represent. The theory is: wal-mart’s not going away, get them to play fair.
Greg – I can’t speak for Jon (nor would I want to) but I think he’s alluding to the fact that WalMart often finds means of avoiding local taxation and apparently accepts a ton of subsidies from local governments. The savings from those types of situations are then NOT passed on to local employees in any way, but taken as profit.
Of course, the pragmatic complaint is more with the structures that allow such things to happen. It’s part of the same complaint I’ve sort of voiced: I’d prefer to see WalMart operating on more free market principles, instead of just pro-profit principles. However the company wants to operate is their business (hehe), as long as it’s legal, but when they receive subsidies from the public wallet, I take issue.
I’m one of those pro-capitalism folks who sees the free market as a great ideal as long as real-world regulation helps skew the playing field towards level and protects the public good both in the long and short terms.
You might not want to blame WalMart for taking advantage of (and arguably influencing the growth of) policies that funnel public cash and unfair breaks their way, but that isn’t the model of government or of capitalism of which I’d like to dream. People (consumers and workers) voicing their concerns fits neatly into a proper free market model. The ‘invisible hand’ is supposed to respond to the ENTIRE market, not just shareholders.
the employees paycheck went to walmart. the paycheck is a fraction of what it was pre-walmart, and since there is no local competition, the money is spent at walmart.
walmart doesn’t accept deliveries at stores or use external distributers. walmart has several distribution hubs across the country. mfgs ship direct to the hub, and at the hub items are designated for stores then shipped via walmart’s own fleet. everything is internalized.
and yes, you should stop buying from chains and only buy local. and you survive pretty damn well.
i hear the argument but i don’t see one stitch of evidence of how bad it affects a town. my town was a dump with an old K-mart with exposed concrete floors and a Hills with broken toilets!!!! not to mention crap products for sale.
in my experience, nothing but good things happened when walmart came to my town. our substandard mall renovated and got loads of new shops right up the road from walmart. they were plagued with vacancies and now they’re booked and busy year round. since walmart, we’ve added several lawn and garden shops including a lowes lumber across the street. we got a target. we got several private shops move into the shopping center at lowes. we’ve got 8 new restaurants and all the old ones are booming. home permits are through the roof. if i follow the logic behind walhaters, my town must be an enigma, it’s must be impossible for a community to grow and we should have fallen further into the welfare state that we were before walmart. once they opened the door, shoppers showed up and gave people a reason to come here! not to mention the other companies that hire locals to peddle their wares.
so what should i believe? that my community is on the brink of economic demise???? i have yet to see one community fall into despair after a walmart comes in. state college has two and a booming down town area. they had a town then walmart came in and destroyed nothing ….walmart came to my town and nothing bad happened, still waiting. sure we can nitpick all day long about them having an unfair advantage but at the end of the day, they still sell crap products and if a company wants to try and compete with walmart selling the same crap products, they deserve to be put out of business. just a thought
jonathan, if i only bought from locals, 1) i’d starve, 2) i would have inadequate shelter, 3) i would have to walk everywhere, 4) i would not be able to run my business and 5) i would be on your precious welfare
I don’t know that many folks (but hell, you can’t put anything past some people) would suggest that it destroys communities. I think that would be pretty naive and silly. It’s more that the general pattern is to rake in as much in the way of subsidies and special permissions as possible, while giving nothing back to a community.
They have improved their environmental practices as of late, though nothing has (from what I can tell) been implemented in general.
Walmart’s retail operations aren’t as detrimental to a community as its buying practices are. Walmart has forced manufacturers to move production overseas (to East Asia and China where they ARE opening stores). They have contributed to the erosion of the US manufacturing base more than they have to the US retail industry.
And the kicker is, they aren’t that much cheaper. WalMart advertises low prices for entry items, but then sells another model for $20 more (but only paid $5 more wholesale). That second product is comparably priced to other retail outlets (if not more expensive).
However, in many parts of the country, Walmart is the ONLY place that consumer can buy some things. For example, if I lived in Ogden, Iowa (nortwest of des moines) and wanted for my baby a nice cradle swing made by a reputable manufacturer whom I know and trust, then the only option I have is to drive 11 miles to Boone to the Walmart there.
Just wait until they really take over the grocery business. I fear for the health of the nation.
Hey, I just thought of something – as far as the Brooklyn location goes, I hear they just cleared up a prime waterfront location in Greenpoint.
Zing!
Holy crap, you think the Polish drive their cars badly on Manhattan avenue? Imagine the aisles of Wal-Mart!
<small>I can kid because I’m Polish.</small>
toby, do you think that true free market could fix our problem with walmart? i’m not sure i know what free market means and how does free market give back to a community? would we have to impose free market around the globe for it to work here?…assuming the chinese government would stop subsidising their companies to sell crap goods in the states? if that happened, i could see at least part of the walwart problem going away and a resurgence of american made products hitting the market. i’m curious how companies would be giving back to the comunity… self imposition i’m guessing? i’m not sure i fully understand “free market” the way you’re using it compared to how i read it’s definition from wikepidia
If a company receives no government subsidies or special permissions (especially those that slant the field beyond level), and if its employees are unionized and able to represent themselves as a part of the company instead of a disposable resource, you’re a lot closer to a model where all parties in the market can play a full role. Subsidizing the purchase of local goods or goods coming from other free market sources wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, as it helps level the playing field for local producers and provides a disincentive (to what degree I can’t say) for countries (such as China) to abuse their workers and the environment in order to keep prices lower than regulated markets.
This inherently gives back to communities by giving members of the community (not just consumers, but workers and competitors) a proper role and literally prevents them from getting bulldozed.
so it’s free market with guidlines or within reason? is that what you’re getting at?
i’m not sure i know what subsidies and preferencial treatment places like walmart get, but it seems hard to define who gets what if we want there to be an “even” playing field. (american farmers are subsidised to “not” plant certain crops or at all. this subsidy gives the largest farms the largest checks and not enough for small farms to survive.
american labor cost are high (traditionally union labor)and chinese labor costs are extremely low. our tax structure is fairly high yet the chinese can keep subsidising their state run companies and still wipeout our home based producers and give walmart the ability to sell lower than low. would you suggest placing higher taxes on imported goods and if so who benefits from that? china, the chinese worker, the american consumer, or the US government?
does placing a higher tax on imports solve a problem or mask it temporarily while promoting the non-free-trade countrys like china to reduce their worker pay and increase their worker slave-hours to compensate for the increased tax? if crap products are increased in price, people here would probably stop buying them. this would force the chinese to do something about their market, but it does it in a slow way and posibly not at all. if the american consumer still has the option to buy a slightly more expensive crap product while our tax system increases to cover a “locals only subsidy” the relative price of all goods may actually move up proportionally to the crap chinese product.
if the base line is that chinese crap product and that is the minimum that people will buy, then the reference point in a free market revolves around that point. we saw that with cars. the government put huge import taxes on the, at the time, crappy japanese cars and the yugo’s, kia’s, mitsubishi’s, fiat’s, and daihatsu’s. what ended up happening was people bought them because they were cheap, but the were also unrefined,crappy, and they broke. the taxes kept them competetive with local markets(ford chrysler etc) and we imported less and less, but what didn’t happen in our market even though our government was essencially subsidising our manufacturers…our cars didn’t get any better. we didn’t, all of a sudden, get great cars or new innovation out of detroit. we got the same old thing until the japanese caught up to us in quality and surpassed us in quality and even with the import tax imposed on them.
what did they do? they opened plants right here in our country to avoid one of our taxes and used our workers to do it. why did they move to the south? union labor cost too much up north and they didn’t want to have to deal with that crap while trying to provide their product. detroit is an example of union greed going sour…pittsburgh is an example of union greed cutting off it’s nose to spite it’s face.
if we try the free market with restrictions, i don’t see how we can promote anything other than consumtion. but, if we lower the cost of our local companies doing business by reducing the taxes they are required to pay to start businesses and to run businesses, we are solving a problem. why do companies outsource to other countries(other than greed), an adversarial tax structure imposed on american business from the inside out. to tap into the public seware system in my town cost a family residence 3200 bucks….but for a commercial property, it is anywhere from 38-60 thousand dollars…..and that is for the same sized tap with the same amount of time and labor involved in tapping into the line. and comunities wonder why all we get are large corporations and chain stores in our community. fleesing the corporations has to stop in a free market but you won’t get a single politician to vote for it here, they are sick with greed.
but this brings us back to square one, how do we allow free market within reason and subsidise small local business and hurt the evil big business and all while being fair? i don’t know if you can. maybe it’s the all or nothing “true” free market that has to be imposed to see if it works. no subsidies and no government involvement…therefore no lobbying, yet no accountability either.
the essence of the problem is that subsidies have to come from somewhere and someone has to pay for them, in china, it’s the government abusing it’s slave labor under communist control. yet their middle class is practicing a more open market. in the states, our local companies are subsidised of high import taxes that do nothing more than raise the price of all goods. our organised labor is an exclusive club trying to shut down free markets and impose their strict guidlines on everyone while treating their workers like children. forced over pays double time in the union so there is no reason to hire more member to a job that needs them, they take care of their own while working them to death in overtime shifts!
is there an answer? i don’t know i just keep coming up with more questions. sorry i was in a sate last night and couldn’t stop thinking about this problem and i obviously have gotten nowhere as you can see from my remblings above. : )
The flyers they were handing out were relating to the late Sam Walton, who when he was acting CEO of Wal-Mart had many different tactics that are not apparent today, such as everything they sold when Sam ran the company was made in America, they provided health care and respected employees. After his death Wal-Mart has taken a turn to become what once was a friend of the American working class to a corporate giant only caring about the $$ and not employees. Now I know your argument will be well how can you say they are not for the working class?? Their prices are very cheap, this is true but you must analyze the hidden cost of Wal-Mart….Taxes to surrounding areas are proven to go up a significant amount, crime rates go up in every town Wal-Mart comes to (check out http://www.walmartcrimereport.com) Look at the big picture, thank you and I encourage you all to learn more on the hidden cost of Wal-Mart.
For the record, NYWalmart, I am NOT a fan of Wal mart and have spoken out against them time and time again. I will do what i can to keep them out of our wonderful city as well.
Just had to go on the record as saying as much. Not that I necessarily needed to.
Thanks for writing.
i just wish people would be honest and just come out and say it! we hate walmart and we hate the people who shop there, obviously they are all criminals and this study proves it. walmart brings out the worst in people, whether it’s their lowincome looser clientel or their greedy rich CEO trying to fleece the moron degenerate public who works there. this article proves that walmarts should not only move into new markets but it looks like the ones in arizona florida texas and california should close their doors. these poor overworked cops would obviously be able to focus on murder and rape instead of the 98% of shopplifting charges out of 148 thousand reported crimes. i’d have to guess that most people would be pleased to hear that the public was stealing from walmarts. (i realize no-one is ever going to read this so i’m having fun.) this was a good report and pretty thorough and the fine print says it all. it will be a good study to help communities try and keep the ugliness that walmart brings into communities……or it just gives that ugliness, that already exists, a stage to work with?.?.?
there was one really funny statistic from utah of all places. a police officer stated something like….our DUI’s have skyrocketed and also mentioned that that was where they originated. somehow i doubt that, i would hazzard a guess that people got wasted and then forgot the diapers so they hit walmart got pulled over….”no officer i wasn’t drinking see, i was shopping for diapers.”
keep walmart out more power to ya, just be honest. yeah i know honesty doesn’t work so we have to cheat and bend the truth and give out the info that help us prove our slanted point.
I wonder if some anti Wal-Mart folks are against the “riffraff” that end up in their towns/cities looking for bargains.
I live in a suburban area and the anti Wal-Mart types are also against building low income apartment buildings because it might “change the character of the city.”
Some of the same people protest against “rails-to-trails” projects because “criminals” might wander off the path into their backyards.
Bargain shoppers and the poor might flood into their gated communities if there are attractions such as affordable housing and cheap goods for sale!
I can understand if they are against Wal-Mart for other reasons, such as wanting to organize a union or providing better health benefits, etc., but these upper-middle class white collar management types never seem to protest when a Wal-Mart is put up in another nearby city.
Just as long as it isn’t in their city and the riffraff leave after installing more gates for their precious communities.