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How
to un-chain your town
Reviewed by Daniel Kraker, Northern Arizona Resident
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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.
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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.
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