It may be one of the most routine experiences in American life: heading to Wal-Mart to buy groceries, some clothes or a bike.
It’s so common that the world’s largest retailer expects to open a new U.S. store, on average, every other day this year.
Most open with little fanfare. Yet in some places – such as Duluth – word that the giant is coming will shake the community like little else can.
People flood City Hall. They shout. They question the chain’s impact on everything from local businesses to the environment to its own employees.
In Duluth, controversy has raged since Wal-Mart unveiled plans to build a 176,305-square-foot Supercenter on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
People have packed meetings, carried protest signs, collected signatures and fired off angry e-mails. The City Council imposed a six-month moratorium on large-scale developments to study their impact. The man who wants to sell 27 acres to Wal-Mart, Jack Bandy, has sued Duluth and the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals.
To Wal-Mart spokesman Glen Wilkins, the company’s commitment to Duluth is an example of its strategy of building near customers.
To critics, the debate is tied up in a larger conversation about issues such as “quality of life” and “community.” Underpinning it all is a frustration with Gwinnett County’s years of seemingly unstoppable development.
“Fatigue is a big part of it,” said Mark Williams, chairman of the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District, a group of businesses that tax themselves to pay for community improvements. “We’ve had a lot of willy-nilly development, and people are just tired of it.”
Big, ugly crime magnets?
Debates about Wal-Mart seem to involve mostly local issues. Foes say the stores are big and ugly, cause traffic, threaten mom and pop stores and attract crime – all of which Wal-Mart disputes.
In almost every case, argues Charles Fishman, author of “The Wal-Mart Effect,” a current of discontent with the brand itself runs just beneath the surface.
As the most dominant retailer on the planet, Wal-Mart has changed the way the world shops and given rise to watchdog groups.
It’s hardly the only retailer accused of paying low wages or using questionable business tactics – charges Wal-Mart denies – but it attracts a level of scorn rarely directed at big-box retailers such as Target or Best Buy.
Why? Its size, Fishman said.
About $10 of every $100 spent at U.S. businesses is spent at Wal-Mart. About 127 million Americans shop there every week.
“They sell more toys than Toys ‘R’ Us. More jeans than Levi Strauss. More groceries than anyone in the world. More guns. More cigarettes. More eyeliner,” Fishman said. “Whatever business you’re in, you wake up thinking about Wal-Mart.”
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2007/12/03/walmart_1202.html