Is Wal-Mart inevitable? (continued)

ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO, Joan Pucino of North Kingstown was part of an emerging national movement challenging the proliferation of big-box development. As the leader of the "No-Mart Coalition," she led a campaign to prevent Wal-Mart from building its sixth Rhode Island store in North Kingstown. Her succinct critique, as expressed to the Phoenix in 1995, remains a vivid rallying cry for big-box opponents across the nation: "The mega-retailing trend is destroying the beauty of the communities that people live in, and it destroys the communities that keep people together. What they call progress is, to me, so far from the type of community that I want to live in."

A decade later, the outcome of the battle that Pucino helped to lead is mixed. Although Wal-Mart did open a store in North Kingstown, grassroots opposition inspired some stringent architectural guidelines. As a result, the exterior of the store is red brick, rather than the conventional gray and blue box. "People say, ‘At least it’s an attractive store,’ and it is," Pucino says, and it is sited less obtrusively than might be expected for such a store.

On the other hand, a Home Depot and Staples followed Wal-Mart’s arrival in North Kingstown. As Pucino says, in a reflection of critics’ fears in Hopkinton, "The door is open now and it makes it harder to say, ‘No.’ " Although the Wal-Mart was originally envisioned as part of a reestablished village center in Lafayette Village, the plan fell by the wayside. Meanwhile, part of the Fiddlesticks recreation area, which includes batting cages, is expected to give way to a shopping development. Even historic Wickford, which might be more likely to ward off chain stores as a relatively prosperous area, has seen a Brooks replace Earnshaws, an individually owned drug store.

Given the strength of property and development rights, government typically takes a hand’s-off approach when it comes to big-box development, even though the proliferation of such retailers, critics believe, has an adverse effect for communities. For example, even though Governor Donald L. Carcieri emphasized the importance of Rhode Island’s natural beauty and distinctive sense of place when he was running for office, "We do not have the ability to be against big-box, because it’s private capital," says Michael McMahon, the governor’s point person on economic development. "They’re not coming to us to ask for any incentives." (McMahon says the state tries to promote smart growth by various steps, including channeling growth into existing urban cores, encouraging farmers to keep at their work, and preserving open space. On the whole, he says, "I think we’re in very good shape.")

Similarly, Thomas Deller, Providence’s director of planning and development, says the city has not taken a stance about Wal-Mart’s plan to demolish a vacant Ames store near Silver Spring Street, replacing it with a Wal-Mart, although he adds, "I am concerned about the impact this store may have on the smaller businesses in the neighborhood."

Pucino, who says she received anonymous death threats via telephone and in her mailbox in the course of her battle against Wal-Mart, believes communities have untapped strength when it comes to fighting big-box development. "You don’t have to settle for what they want to throw at you," she says. When it comes to placing pressure for a more distinctive design or other concessions, "That’s where communities forget that they actually have some power."

Indeed, critics point to the ability of communities, and potentially regions, to exert more influence in shaping their own destinies. The Web site (www.sprawl-busters.com) of Al Norman, dubbed by 60 Minutes as the guru of the anti-Wal-Mart movement, for example, lists 221 communities, including Middletown and almost 20 in Massachusetts, which have scored at least one victory over a big-box store.

Still, Pucino, who describes a growing amount of development in South Kingstown and Narragansett, has little expectation that big-box development will stop eating up the Rhode Island landscape. In one respect, it comes down to how the incentives in favor of development — particular the opportunity for developers to make money on land and their savvy in working through the process — are far greater than ad hoc citizen groups and other contrary forces. "It takes a great [amount of] organization," Pucino says. "There’s a big learning curve. I hate to say it, but the battle is almost lost before you know what you’re fighting."

NOT EVERYONE is quite so pessimistic. Stacy Mitchell, the author of The Home Town Advantage: How to Defend Main Street Against Chain Stores . . . and Why it Matters (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 2000), cites growth in independent business alliances and community-based economy development programs that strengthen independent businesses. Pointing to such beacons of hope, the Portland, Maine, resident says, "I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think we could turn this [proliferation of big-box development] around."

As an expert on big-box, however, Mitchell is the first to acknowledge a series of daunting challenges. For starters, as she notes, "Many of these retailers have a carpet bombing strategy." When it comes to Wal-Mart, "Their real intention is to cannibalize their own sales, expanding in a number of different ways, continuing to build new stores, super centers about six times the size of a football field, particularly in small towns and rural areas. They are expanding by building new lines of goods — groceries, gas stations, used car sales in Texas . . . They continue to expand and gain market share and move into new lines of goods." Mitchell asserts that even well-run independent businesses face difficulty in surviving when Wal-Mart comes to town. In contrast to the official line, "It doesn’t create competition, it eliminates competition," she says, "to the point where, down the line, there will be many kinds of goods [consumers] can no longer get except at Wal-Mart."

Summing it up, Mitchell says, "The cost and consequences of this kind of development are multifaceted — not just low wages, not just sprawl, or the loss of small businesses. It’s all of those things." Wal-Mart’s success is also leaving a path of vacant retailers in its wake, and the mega-retailer, she says, has received hundreds of millions in public subsidies in recent years, including $17 million to build a distribution center in Lewiston, Maine.

Mia Masten, a Washington, DC-based spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, asserts that the giant retailer fosters competition, rather than squelching it. In the area from North Carolina to Maine, "I’ve seen locations where we have many side-by-side other stores, competition that actually benefits from having us nearby," Masten says. "We believe we can exist with smaller and larger retailers. It keeps everyone on their toes." The addition of product lines and the quest for growth is, she says, "the nature of enterprise."

Athough Wal-Mart has supplanted General Motors as the standard-setting company, some see its large-scale impact as exerting downward pressure on wages, rather than upward pressure, as was the case with GM in the mid-20th-century. As author and scholar Simon Head told the New York Times, "Wal-Mart is certainly a template of 21st-century capitalism, but a capitalism that increasingly represents a capitalism of 100 years ago. It combines the extremely dynamic use of technology with a very authoritarian and ruthless managerial culture."

Mitchell sees two main things as necessary to fight the proliferation of big-box retailers: the education of elected officials who believe, mistakenly, that such stores mean additional jobs and revenue. In fact, she says, they have hidden economic costs, and, "There is every reason to believe that the community that accepts one will find itself worse off." The other significant element is the ability of communities to use the most powerful took at their disposal — planning and zoning policies — for example, to set limits on the size of new retail developments.

BACK IN HOPKINTON, proponents and opponents are waiting and watching to see what will happen. It’s something of a long shot, but opponents, with Chafee’s help, are looking into the possibility of buying the 56 acres being eyed for development.

Asked about concerns about the impact of the possible project, Robert Frazier, a vice president at W/S Development, says, "I would have to say that the location of this particular property is such that it wouldn’t impact the rural character . . . It would be in a good location to minimize impacts throughout the rural character of Hopkinton. There are lots of beautiful areas that exist and will continue to do so. I think the intent is to provide something that the community could look at it in a positive light, rather than a negative light." Listening to the concerns of the community, Frazier adds, would be an important part of developing the site.

Meanwhile, opponents like Gary Williams almost audibly cringe in mulling what might happen.

In some ways, the battle over big-box in Hopkinton is a metaphor for the future of Rhode Island. Although the full impact of potential development is difficult to immediately discern, this much is clear: once rural land is developed, there’s unlikely to be any turning back.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.