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I'm no Wal-Mart fan, but if ONE in the area meant an end to the "Duane Reade on every corner" trend, I could be persuaded to change my opinion about the big W. The store, that is. My opinion on "Dubya" remains unchanged...

Aside from the labor practices that come with Wal-Mart (both the treatment of Wal-Mart employees and the globalization implications of getting the lowest price no matter what) -- I believe that part of the uniqueness of New York is because there is no Wal-Mart here. When I first moved to NYC, I was a little stymied about where to buy just regular household stuff (where do I get a garbage can for the kitchen?) until I discovered my neighborhood hardware store, which is crammed to the ceiling with stuff and the employees will fetch you anything you need. And now I wouldn't trade that for pushing a cart around the wide aisles of Wal-Mart. In my home state of Kentucky, small-town shopping districts have all but disappeared as everybody drives 50 miles to the nearest Wal-Mart. I don't think small stores in New York would disappear, but the culture of homogeneity would gain another foothold. However, I know it's hard to compete with low, low prices...

Home Depot, Loew's, Target, Ikea and now Wal-Mart. NYC is becoming too much like the suburbs so many try to escape from.

ugh...
Wal-mart is bad, evil even. It's not good for the places it moves to, so many of the people who work there are still on some sort of public assistance.
Duane Reade on every corner is annoying, but at the same time convenient. Yes, their prices are high, their service miserable, etc, but I don't think that any DR pharmacist would refuse to fill a prescription for birth control.

I feel that Wal-mart is against everything NYC is about.

I could go on and on, but I won't.
walmart.purpleocean.org

Avoid Duane Reade. If you live in the west village, go to Village Apothecary instead. They are fabulous, and their prices are actually better. I would imagine that at least one independent pharmacy must exist in each neighborhood in the city. I try to buy local, period.

Considering that a Wal-Mart makes sense (to them) only when its huge, it will obviously need some sort of zoning variance. Perhaps when WalMart gets serious, you can pile on requirements attached to that variance. Like require them to have a union (worked in Montreal) or, perhaps require them to pay higher than minimum wage, and more still if you don't provide health insurance (worked in Chicago) Honestly, WalMart doesn't work without three important things-cheap gas, cheap land & cheap labor. Good Luck!

I'm with Tara -- any errand I go on with my mother involves Wal Mart, and I really don't want them in the city. Of course, I said the same thing about the KMart seven years ago, and even though I avoid it, I go there when I just can't figure out who else would have something.

Wal-mart represents a lot of what's wrong with American capitalism. I am all for the purchase of cheap goods--I live on a budget as much as the next person--but Wal-mart can go f***k itself, quite frankly.

Wal-mart has no unions, provides no health insurance, discriminates against women, and locks in (LOCKS in, so they are unable to escape in the case of fire) the people who clean their buildings. More than this, although the Walton family is wealthier than Bill Gates, they give next to nothing to charity.

The mindfulness and care that the Minimalism aesthetic seems to require should extend past the acquisition of the 'right' things. Human labor matters. To my aesthetic, at least.

Wal -mart is nothing like these posts portray. They are just the opposite in most respects, in fact (although there are no unions; why pay dues to a union to get you what the business already gives you?)
Needing (or wanting) to save a little money on a purchase is normal. Walmart will usually save you money on an item vs. buying it elsewhere. Get over it.
How silly - as though paying more for something at the locally-owned store makes the purchase more "responsible" than a purchase at a discount retailer.

Ger - wake up. sorry but simply think about the implications of all the employees that Wal mart employs not having health insurance. Who pays for it? How much do you really think you are saving.

By what right does anybody have to demand that WalMart not open a store in NYC? The test for any store is whether people shop there or not. If WalMart can be profitable in NYC, then that means -- by definition -- that they are providing a valuable service to the people of New York who choose to shop there.

What right does anybody have to prevent people from shopping at WalMart? As long as WalMart does not violate anybody's property rights or individual rights, then it is the obstructionists who are guilty of harming others. You harm others by preventing an honest business from voluntarily offering its goods and services to people who voluntarily buy or don't buy those goods and services. If you hate WalMart, then don't shop there. But please do not impose your prejudices on those in New York that would welcome this company.

And think of it -- there are plenty of people out there who object to plenty of things that you do. Do you want them to impose their prejudices on you? If you don't want others to impose their will on you, then you would be hypocritcal to impose your anti-WalMart prejudices on them.

For a supposedly "liberal" city, there are plenty of people in this city who just can't stop butting into how other people choose to live. What hypocricy and bigotry! OK, now I'll get off my soap box.

Bob--
Well said. I say, just don't shop at any place that offends your sensibilities. But don't block the door!
I just object to these generic giants in Manhattan because they provide no visual interest or uniqueness, in the same way I'm not a fan of bank lobbies taking up valuable pedestrian-level real estate.
Plus, at least these chains and larger retailers offer extended hours "in the city that never sleeps". I was in SoHo last Friday and most stores had closed at 6 or 7pm.
I also never understood why Wal-Mart was expected to hire union labor...

I've noticed that I get nicer help in stores where people get paid a reasonable wage and stick around for a while. The Container Store is apparently one of the nicer retail places to work for and really tries to retain people for the long-term. Even when I didn't know that, I did know that the store was neat and the people were helpful. If even my local supermarket can afford to give their employees a union wage, I don't understand why WalMart can't. It recently closed that unionised store in Canada because it wasn't making enough profit... WalMart was also recently written up in the Times for settling some child labor problems with the Dept. of Labor. [That means kids in the states, not abroad...]

WalMart has all rights to come into the city, but I want it to play nice, which means I want it to hire people for a good wage that will let you live well enough in the city -- if part of your pitch is that you offer jobs, they better be ones worth having. I also want it to have a nice building that is friendly to pedestrians and mass transit and I don't want it to abandon its new building in Rego Park for greener pastures after 10-20 years. In exchange, they get access to around 8 million people, give or take. I think that's a good trade.

I would say that the equation is the same as for shoppers. That is, as a shopper, you decide whether WalMart offers the mix of prices, quality, customer service, etc etc that you want. If they don't, then you don't have to shop there.

Workers are faced with the same choice. Given the wages and conditions offered by WalMart, prospective workers choose to work there or not. Workers who refuse to be employed in a store that doesn't have a union would simply decide not to work at WalMart. Those who may prefer not being in a union would actually find the non-unionized WalMart a good place to live. Whatever!

From my perspective, I do not have a right to tell anyone that they MUST be in a union in order to get a job.

At the same time, I respect your opinion about unions. My response is that if the fact that WalMart is not unionized is an important factor for you, then please do not shop there. But please do not forcibly stop others who do not share your love of unions. In other words, please give freedom a chance. Freedom to allow those who disagree with you to peaceably and voluntarily associate and trade with each other.

i shop at a walmart near my home. i will tell you that after purchasing numerous and diverse products at walmart, the one thought that sticks with you as you shop around town in other places is how expensive other stores are. and given that wages for most people are not sky high, even in new york city, walmart serves a real purpose. cheaper costing staples for the home, like paper goods, detergent, sheets. supplies for diversions, like dvd's, shampoo. clothes for the family, like pj's for the kids, shorts for your husband to hang around in the backyard on saturdays, slippers for the mom to wear on early sunday mornings. it's a big store and filled with all the different types of people that live in our area. now the socialites are not going to be shopping there. or the highly paid educated folks of manhattan. but it's a nice break for the ordinary folks who have a limited supply of money.

I have a feeling that the so-called "highly educated" folks of Manhattan would shop in WalMart if they had a chance. They may disguise themselves so nobody knows that they shop in the big, bad non-unionized WalMart, but they like a bargain just like everybody else!

Perhaps you are right Bob, people in Manhattan would shop at big bad Wal-Mart if they had the option. But then again, there are people who won't (like myself) even if given the option because they do not play fair. They shift health care costs to the public through low wages and no health care wheich puts many of their employees onto medicaid. I'm helping them pay for their healthcare. So are you. They have forced manufacturers to sell product under the cost to produce it (and its not the ceo's paycheck that gets shorted in such cases.) They use (or at least used) child labor. They don't seem to care much about foreign subsidiaries and suppliers - unless they are trying to form a union that is. They seek tax credits and exemptions because they are "bringing in jobs" and then close the store when the exemption sunsets leaving a dead main street and desolate big empty box. Wal-Mart is the biggest company in the world, they do not need a handout! They use campaign money to reduce their responsibility. That's our money enriching the Walton Family's coffers. They are sexist and racist (maybe not, perhaps I will await the settlement where they admit no wrongdoing but promise to change their practices anyway.) In short, they are not nice people and it is not a bargain. The product itself might be cheaper, but we are all paying for it. Some people may not be able to avoid buying things at Wal-Mart, but I can and I will. There are people who realize that the cost isn't just the money listed on the tag and know that Wal-Mart's prices are way too high.

I think that each large, impersonal chain does, in spite of itself, have its own personality. Target has managed to make itself hip and pretty, and although there's not one really near me, I would rather buy my Tide there, for instance, because I DO appreciate their making the stores and the stuff look good. Call me superficial.

K-Mart was never one of my favorite stores growing up, but seriously, if there's a Martha Stewart product that suits my needs, I'll buy it for the quality AND because I think she was unnecessarily raked over the coals. Call me a lame version of a radical.

Home Depot & Loewes -- I shop at them when I'm helping my father with projects where they live, and my only problem with them is that quite often the people who work there don't know anything, but the ones who do, REALLY do. My other problem is that their selections tend to be geared to McMansion look (as the fellow with the cool kitchen in the former candy factory mentioned about unnecessary standard embellishment in home materials). But other than a certain degree of mediocrity, I don't think of those places as evil, per se. I love the idea that they make home improvement such an accessible form of empowerment. Call me naive.

Duane Reade is probably kind of evil, but of all the ubiquitous drug store chains, I theoretically like it, because it at least originate in Manhattan (between Duane Street and Reade Street -- hence the name), and that makes it seem slightly local to me. The truth is, I go to whatever is close to me. Call me lazy.

Wal-Mart seems to have really carved out its own special place in hell. It's not just the labor practices and the local downtowns that it has decimated that are the problem. It has actively choked out small manufacturers by making them dependent on them, and then stopping using them, and then bankrupting them and buying them at auction. They have no desire to cater to New Yorkers, by coming here -- for them, we're just another thing to conquer. Frankly, I hope they DO open up a store; they develop an area; they fail miserably here; they pull out; and everything else about the community they try to come into gets better in spite of them, and mainly after they've left.

Dear Tara Banks I am one of your biggest fans but Ihave one question to ask you do you know of a man in history know as Willie lynch? He was a slave owner who came up with a method to keep african americans enslaved in the mind. He stated that you "must pitch the old black male against the young black male and the young against the old and the light against the dark.He even has methods of how to break us down. They dont teach us about him in history. And it brings me to tears to have to tell you that not one black person knows who he is. I think in order to know where youre going in life you have to know where you have been. We might not ever experience slavery again true but should we forget who we are no!!! What are we teaching our children to forget about all those who died for them. I was at school and a riot between hispanics and african americans almost broke out and I got so scared because I didnt even know if we would stick together on that. I mean how sad is that? Please if you get this message just at least bring up the Willie Lynch syndrone because sad to say but that's what a lot of us have and what if we experience somthing worser than slavery. Should we start a revolution no but outside of God all we have here on earth is each other and we need to not ever forget to be proud of who we are.

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