The planned construction of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter has been stopped in Charlevoix after the company announced that it was withdrawing its application to build a store on 24-acres of land.
While Wal-Mart did not give a specific reason for canceling the construction, it likely was the result of resistance from local citizens. Local citizens formed a group called This is Our Town not Wal-Mart's and effectively made use of a variety of efforts--petitions, attending city council meetings, using the local media, and popular education--in order to raise questions about Wal-Mart's potential effect on Charlevoix.
As previously reported by Media Mouse, Wal-Mart continues to be the target of significant criticism from a variety of groups around the country. Adding to this criticism is a new report by Good Jobs First examining Wal-Mart's receipt of economic development subsidies from taxpayers. The report documents $1 billion in subsidies that Wal-Mart received from state and local governments. The subsidies have taken a variety of forms--free or reduced price land, property tax breaks, state corporate income tax credits, and others--all of which were received during the period in which Wal-Mart became the largest corporation in the world.
The study also challenges the notion that Wal-Mart is a positive economic force in local communities. The Good Jobs First report argues that, unlike factories which add jobs and export products outside the region, big chain retailers like Wal-Mart "do little more than take revenues away from existing merchants and may put them out of business and leave their workers unemployed. It's quite possible that a new Wal-Mart will destroy as many (or more) jobs than it creates" and "since many Wal-Mart [jobs] are lower-paying and part-time, they will do less to stimulate the economy." Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First, says Wal-Mart's "negative effect on small businesses in the communities where it locates and its contribution to urban sprawl and traffic raise serious questions about the value of giving it sizable financial incentives to expand."
