The Small is Beautiful Committee of the St. Paul Green Party has been working on a proposal to present to the community that would limit the size of future stores opening up in the Twin Cities to anywhere between 40,000 and 70,000 square feet. This project resulted from frustration with Wal-Mart’s complete dismissal of a community campaign to demand that their new St. Paul store meet higher, community-set standards.

Almost 200 communities around the country have passed legislation of this nature, and more are in the process of doing so, with support from people all over the spectrum. Why? Because this type of legislation is not only important in maintaining fair labor practices and environmental standards, it’s also important for the economic stability of our communities.

Big box stores are large retail facilities ranging in size from 20,000 to 200,000 square feet. To put that into context, the Wal-Mart in St. Paul is 114,608 square feet. There are definite benefits to big box retailers. They have the ability to provide low prices, large selections, free parking, long hours, the convenience of one stop shopping, and they practically eliminate the hassles of back ordering. These stores also employ huge numbers of people. Wal-Mart is the single biggest private employer in the US, with close to one million employees. But what’s the truth behind this seemingly rosy picture? The owners of these stores would like you to believe that big box retail stores are great for any community. But if that’s the case, then why are so many people fighting to keep them out?

One reason is while the tag price on many items may be quite low, that item is actually being provided at a very high cost. In order to keep prices down, these stores pay their workers incredibly low wages. Furthermore, these stores typically provide unaffordable health care and few, if any, retirement benefits. A study by the non partisan, non profit group, San Diego County Taxpayers’ Association (SDCTA) found that an influx of big box stores in San Diego would drive down wages and benefits by between $105 and $221 million. These conditions not only affect the workers at that store, they affect the community at large, because taxpayers must pay for the health and retirement needs of those workers. The same SDCTA study found that with an influx of big box stores, public health costs would increase by about nine million dollars.

In order to keep the cost of retail goods down, these stores also import most of their goods from developing countries, more often than not using factories with horrendous environmental and labor track records. In fact, Wal-Mart has been accused of pressuring suppliers to lower labor costs. This means you can be assured that most of those goods you buy at a place like Wal-Mart are made by workers being paid close to nothing, in sweatshops with unhealthy conditions and high pollution emissions.

So you may pay a few dollars less on a certain item at Wal-Mart than you would at the corner store, but the price difference is more than made up in the tax dollars we pay to support these stores, the environmental destruction caused by their factories, and the poverty in which their workers must live.

Furthermore, when these developments move into a community, they basically destroy the local economy. Although the argument has been made that these stores draw more shoppers to the area, the benefit of more customers is not felt by local stores. Neighborhood stores can’t compete with big box stores. Because these huge retailers buy in such large quantities, they are able to buy at cheaper rates than the locally owned stores. With their “cheap” prices, long hours, and the convenience of having everything you want in one place, big box stores quickly eliminate all competition. As Wal-Mart, or a store similar to it, moves into a neighborhood, the majority of small stores around it are forced to close. This isn’t just a theory—it’s happened time and time again. People who once owned their own business are forced to seek new jobs, as are their employees (who, on average, are paid better and receive more benefits than employees of big box stores). The idea of the mom and pop shop, of the corner store, is ceasing to exist.

However, these stores don’t just affect the economies of the community in which they’re built; they also affect the economies of surrounding towns. Because shoppers are willing to travel to shop at a place like Wal-Mart, these large stores often take away the market of small stores in surrounding communities as well. In a study done by Edward B. Shils, he found that sales in towns surrounding towns with a Wal-Mart dropped by two percent in the first year and continued dropping at a rate of 34% over ten years.

Another problem comes when these stores decide to vacate their current site, usually to move into a new, bigger store nearby. They leave behind a huge, empty building and parking lot. There are few businesses that can operate in such a huge space, and as a result, these spaces are often left vacant for long periods of time, giving the area an abandoned, ghettoized feel. Currently, there are 380 empty Wal-Mart stores in the US, as they have a tendency to move about every ten years in order to “reinvent” themselves. It’s a problem here in Minnesota, too, as Wal-Mart intends to close its stores in Owatonna and Albert Lea and open larger stores nearby.

When I first got involved with all this a few weeks back, I had some hesitations. My main concern was that legislation putting a cap on the size of stores would prevent large grocery stores from opening up in the future, stores which are able to provide groceries at a lower price than smaller grocery stores, an important fact to people on tight budgets. The truth of the matter is that as a community, we end up being more burdened financially when these big box stores move in. By keeping them out, we save our tax dollars, money that can be used for a variety of things, including social programs and creating jobs. Furthermore, the argument used by many of these stores—that by blocking their development we’re “hurting the poor,” because we’re restricting their access to cheaper goods—is plain offensive. It is the very companies making this argument that impose conditions that keep their employees impoverished. If these companies cared for one second about the welfare of the people, they would pay their employees livable wages and treat them decently.

If you’d like to get involved with this project, email jmortenson@macalester.edu or come to the next meeting on Thursday at 5 P.M. at Cahoots Coffee Shop, a couple stores east of the intersection at Selby Ave and Snelling Ave. For a more comprehensive version of this article, go to http://www.macalester.edu/macgreens/.