Fighting the Wal-Mart Effect in San Antonio

PROBLEM: Wal-Mart building another Supercenter

Wal-Mart; the mega daddies of big box retailers notorious for wiping out local, independent businesses, decreasing employee  wages and increasing poverty levels in areas where it builds, is planning a 180,000 square foot supercenter smack dab next to a residential neighborhood and wildlife filled recreational park.

Does it fill a need that is currently unmet?  

Well, let’s see . . .  there are 3 Supercenter Wal-Mart’s within 5 miles and 8 Supercenter Wal-Mart’s within ten miles. Moreover, there are several empty stores in strip malls that overpopulate the area as it is. 

I would say, no.

Stacy Mitchell’s comprehensive study on the effects of large non-local retailers in her book Big Box Swindle details the effects of these businesses on the local economy:

• Shuttering of smaller businesses that cannot compete price wise. Studies show that big box stores cut prices to drastic levels for 1-2 years to purposely close these smaller stores down.  Once they are gone, these large retailers raise their prices comparably to what the others stores were charging.

• Employees who work at the smaller, local businesses make higher hourly wages and usually enjoy health benefits and other perks. When these stores close, the employees are out of work or go to work for the big box retailers for less pay and less benefit.

• Local governments by law must give these large corporations tax benefits that smaller businesses cannot get.

• The cost on local government due to infrastructure costs, police costs etc. rise to the detriment of local taxpayers

Studies prove that poverty levels in areas where a Wal-Mart is built rises and then increases again with the addition of another Wal-Mart store --  and we have 8 in a ten mile area.  

Okay, so, what’s the good news?!?

The people of San Antonio are fighting back . . . . and winning!  A group of concerned citizens and our councilwoman, Elisa Chan, http://www.ci.sat.tx.us/council/d9/  have done their homework and now know what a disadvantage this Wal-Mart would be for the people of District 9 and the city as a whole.  With the backing of our mayor, Julian Castro and Councilmen David Medina, Ray Lopez and Cris Medina, Rep. Chan has filed a CCR (council consideration request) to rezone the property which will limit building size to 5,000.

Kudos to our city official Elisa Chan, for putting local people first!