3c hapter - Index of

54 Locavesting
Since 2006, Walmart has topped its list of companies with workers
dependent upon health- care programs run by the state. In
2008, 5,021 Walmart workers were enrolled in such programs
in Massachusetts alone. The situation is much the same in states
across the country. 16
Researchers at Loyola University tracked 306 retail businesses
within a four- mile radius of a Walmart that opened on the west
side of Chicago in 2006. By 2008, 82 had gone out of business,
with the hardest- hit retailers being the closest to Walmart. The
equivalent of 300 full- time jobs were lost. What’s more, after analyzing
taxable sales for nine months before and nine months after
Walmart opened, the researchers found that sales receipts in the
surrounding area had declined. 17
Meanwhile, those empty downtown storefronts can lead to the
decline of a once- bustling commercial district, lowering a town’s
property taxes and diminishing what was once its most valuable real
estate. And because chains have tax strategies available to them that
the independents do not (like combined reporting, which allows
them report a loss even if the store is profi table in that particular
state), the overall effect can be a lowering of a region’s tax collections.
Add to that the considerable costs of maintaining infrastructure
such as roads, lights, and security that come with a big- box
presence, and the expected windfall quickly disappears.
But by now, the town is totally dependent on the big-box as a
revenue source, which can be a problem when, invariably, the shiny
supercenter starts feeling a little old and outdated. The retailer
starts looking around for greener pastures, sparking another round
of frantic concessions by town offi cials to keep the store, and pitting
one locality against another.
That’s the local damage. But what about the impact on the
overall economy?
As the big-boxes have grown, so has their clout, to the point
where they are reorganizing large swaths of the economy around
themselves. Suppliers must play by their rules—or be shut out.
Costs are increasingly pushed onto suppliers, who may even
be assessed a fee if their products fail to generate suffi cient
profi ts. 18