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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] How to un-chain your town
  • Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 05:57:50 -0700

How to un-chain your town
Reviewed by Daniel Kraker, Northern Arizona Resident
http://www.flagteaparty.org/Publications/Nov2000/Pages/unchaintown.html

This past February I drove through Flagstaff for the first time, having just
moved to northern Arizona. I entered town from the south, coming up
Interstate 40 and continuing on Milton Road. What I saw on my arrival was a
bit of a disappointment. I had heard good things about Flagstaff's homey
community flavor. Instead I was greeted by Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway, just to
name a few of the chain stores I saw. With every chain store I passed I felt
more and more ensconced in Anytown U.S.A.

At Route 66 I was stopped by a red light. Before me rose the largest (and
most faux-rustic) Barnes & Noble I had ever seen. While it was hard not to
stare at its giant fieldstone facade, my eyes were drawn instead to the
parking lot, where picketers wielded placards decrying the superstore's
effect on local retailers and Flagstaff's quality of life. Every decent-sized
town has chain stores, and most have residents who detest their presence, but
few have citizens willing to openly and actively protest them. The moment I
saw those protesters, braving barbs and catcalls shouted from passing cars, I
knew I had found my new home.


Sad to say, the efforts of those brave souls I saw at Barnes & Noble were for
naught. The store was there, its doors were open, and it wasn't about to go
out of business anytime soon. I now can only wish that Flagstaff residents
had read Stacy Mitchell's The Home Town Advantage: How to Defend Your Main
Street Against Chain Stores...And Why It Matters, before Barnes & Noble came
to town. The book was recently published by the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance.

This slim volume is jam-packed with practical steps communities can take to
both preserve their independent retail sectors and stave off corporate
chains. Its value lies in the real-life governance tools it gives communities
that allow them to be proactive. Its inspiration comes from the fact that
other communities have already proven that these laws work. Rather than
picketing (although I doubt the author would object to old-fashioned
protesting) it advocates a bevy of policies that local governments can adopt
to maintain a healthy and vibrant locally-owned retail sector.

Most pertinent to Flagstaff and its cautious city council is a chapter on
planning and zoning, which lays out a variety of rules that have already been
implemented in communities across the country. Towns from Connecticut to
Florida to California have placed maximum size caps on retail stores, some as
low as 45,000 square feet (by contrast the proposed new Wal-Mart Supercenter
will top out at over 200,000 square feet). Several West Coast cities have
banned "formula" chain restaurants.

Naysayers are quick to point out that when one town refuses a Big Box, a
neighboring community is usually eager to snatch it up. When this occurs, a
town can lose important sales tax revenue as eager shoppers hop the border.
Indeed Wal-Mart has already threatened to move just across Flagstaff's
eastern edge if its proposed new supercenter adjacent to the Mall is denied.

Mitchell cites two strategies communities have embraced to control
development at their borders. One is to create regional commissions that have
the authority to approve or reject new construction. Flagstaff, for example,
could join with Sedona, Williams and other neighboring communities to draft a
regional policy plan that expressly favors locally-owned businesses. Cape
Cod, Mass., voters have created just such a commission.

A second strategy is detailed on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's
website (www.newrules.org). Mamaroneck, N.Y., recently enacted a zoning
ordinance that requires developments of more than 100,000 square feet - or
with more than 1,000 parking spaces - that are adjacent to the town's borders
to obtain a permit from the Mamaroneck Town Board.

While the policies listed in The Home Town Advantage are the book's meat and
potatoes, it's more than simply a handbook of rules. As its subtitle
proclaims, just as important as protecting Main Streets from chains is
knowing why it matters. We can point to the asphalt acres and streams of cars
that inevitably follow Big Box developments. We might know a local shop owner
who can point to lost sales after a chain came to town. But no matter how
heartfelt our dissent may be, it rarely stands up to the dollar signs that
developers flash before city councils.

To most city governments, a little more traffic and a few less local
retailers are small prices to pay for progress, for jobs and for tax
revenues. If the big boys (and girls) can do it cheaper, why prop up the
little guy? Why cling to an antiquated vision of Main Street storefronts and
small shop owners?

Greenfield, Mass., tried to answer these questions when a Wal-Mart tried to
build a superstore there in 1993. A study paid for by Wal-Mart concluded that
a new superstore would cost existing businesses $35 million in sales, leading
to a loss of 105,000 square feet of retail space and a subsequent decline in
property tax revenues. Furthermore, the 134 jobs promised by Wal-Mart would
be offset by a loss of 112 jobs elsewhere, leading to a net gain of only 22
mainly low-wage jobs.

Mitchell also lays out the little things that local businesses contribute to
communities, above and beyond their goods and services. "Local ownership,"
she writes, "means that profits circulate within the community, and, unlike
national chain stores, independent merchants patronize small regional
distributors and wholesalers, and rely on other local businesses for services
such as banking, printing, and accounting."

Local merchants also have a vested interest in the places where they do
business - not just in the bottom line. Their property taxes pay for their
children's schooling. They support local Little League teams. They sit on
local boards. They provide stability to the local economy. When local
economic winds turn stormy, local businesses won't uproot for greener
pastures.

If you could punch these intangibles into a calculator that measures the
health and vitality of Flagstaff, they would add up to a heck of a lot more
than the nickels you save on a book at Barnes & Noble or a pair of underwear
at Wal-Mart.

If I have one quibble with this otherwise immensely timely and readable book,
it's that it doesn't provide more of the "why it matters." It devotes only a
handful of pages to the benefits of local ownership but gives a full five
chapters to political strategies communities can employ to fight off
absentee-owned chain stores.

Granted, the dizzying pace of chain store expansion and small business
closures demands immediate action. Independent booksellers' share of total
book sales, for example, has fallen from 58 percent in 1972 to just 17
percent, while Barnes & Noble and Borders now control more than 25 percent of
the market. This book in a way reflects the urgency that all independents are
facing. We all know what the problem is, it says, now here's what you can do
about it.

By focusing on policy, The Home Town Advantage recognizes what has been
missing in communities across the country, including Flagstaff. Citizens
everywhere lament the chain store invasion and the passing of their Main
Street shops, but in most cases have felt powerless to do anything about it.
This book provides citizens and communities with proven tools to not only
fight mega-stores, but also to nurture a truly hometown economy.



Daniel Kraker is a researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He
is also a freelance journalist, currently doing some reporting for KNAU. He
lives on the Hopi reservation in Keams Canyon with his family but Flagstaff
is his home away from home on weekends.





  • [Livingontheland] How to un-chain your town, Tradingpost, 11/13/2004

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